Alert to those who start medicare and have either an advantage plan or a supplemental plan are looking for a chiropractor in Ellensburg that is covered by medicare as a way to take advantage of Medicare's chiropractic benefit - this office bills for their 'initial exam' fee of $150.00 and you won't find out about that until about 3 months after your initial visit when the clerical staff informs you that you owe $150.00 for your 'initial exam' that your insurance doesn't cover. Medicare doesn't cover initial examination fees, only the adjustments, this office knows that and should have told me that before I set up my first appointment. Although Alpine insists that I was told there 'could' be charges that my insurance wouldn't cover, they did not tell me their policy to charge an initial fee of $150.00 for new patients, whether insurance covered it or not. The correct terminology would have been 'you will have to pay our $150.00 exam fee because medicare related insurance won't, do you still want to make an appointment?'
Before I wrote this review I did give them a chance to address my concern and asked to be reimbursed for this fee given that I wasn't told about it before my first appointment. They got back to me and stated that the doctor recalls my first visit and specifically telling me that there could be additional fees not covered by my insurance. I am scratching my head on that because I gave them my x-rays -- meaning no X-rays were needed -- and the doctor commented that was good, I saved that potential cost but he didn't mention the initial exam fee or other costs outside of the adjustment fee.
If you are seeing a chiropractor now that you like and you have Humana PPO medicare advantage plan, stick with that chiropractor and submit claims yourself to save 50% off your adjustment cost. If you are looking for a medicare covered chiropractor, call around and ask specifically about that initial exam fee if you are a new patient. read more
