I had a really unpleasant experience at GGP today. My 13 year old son came home from school with a splitting headache and severe congestion. His symptoms have persisted for about 4 days and after school he seemed worse. I feared he might have a sinus infection. We are returning to GGP after over 1 year with Kaiser and had been with GGP before the Kaiser sabbatical for over 11years. We had experienced decent care in the past.
I called today late in the afternoon and explained his symptoms and asked if we could come in at the last appointment. The last appointment was at 4:30 and it was already 4 and I still had to pick him up at home at take him. . I also asked if they were contracted with Blue Shield and mentioned my son's plan name. I was told that they are contracted with several plans with Blue Shield, but they were not sure if my son's plan was part of their contract. It is a popular Blue Shield individual Silver 70 PPO, yet they could not tell me if they were contracted and suggested that I call Blue Shield and give them GGP's Provider ID # to verify whether they were contracted. I explained to them that I've never had to call a health plan to verify whether my doctor is in the network, as my doctors will tell me which plans that they are contracted with...and I was speaking directly with the staff at my doctor's office that does the insurance billing. He kept telling me it's my responsibility to call my health plan to ask if GGP is contracted and part of Blue Shield's network. I'm a former health insurance agent and know for a fact, that providers are the ones who choose which plans they want to be contracted with and receive contracts from health plans which state clearly which plans the providers agreed to contract with, and yet the staff at GGP were telling me that I needed to call Blue Shield and find out if GGP was on their network. I then explained to the GGP staff member that this would take me a good 20 minutes to get through to figure this out as I was not a provider but a member and I didn't have much time to spare given that I needed to be at the appointment in less than 30 minutes. I told him, in my experience as a health insurance agent, that it is the medical group's job to know who they are contracted with. None of this mattered as he stuck to his testimony that was my job to find out. Well, it did take me over 20 minutes to get through to the health plan and finally determine that GGP was contracted with Blue Shield. Because of the time it took, I was 10 min late.
When my son and I arrived and checked into the front desk, we were treated rudely. It was clear that it was close to the end of day and the receptionist at the front desk was irritated and seemingly burnt out. I told her that I had a new insurance card for my son and she quickly gabbed it. I proceeded to tell her that I was late because I was on the phone with Blue Shield trying to determine if GGP was contracted with them as their staff could not tell me this. I then informed her that GGP was indeed contracted with Blue Shield and it might be good for them to know that for the next patient. She cut me off midsentence and rushed me and my son in to see Dr Quinn. Dr Quinn was not our normal doctor but was the only doctor available at that time.
Dr. Quinn was equally as rude stating to my son that because we were late she would have to rush through her questions. She was obviously annoyed because we were late and I explained to her why. She also stated that it was my job to find out whether or not GGP was contracted with my son's Blue Shield plan.
She would then ask a question to both my son and I about his symptoms then would cut me off in the middle of my answer. I expressed to her that my main concern was that my son might have a sinus infection and I wanted to rule that out. She said she did not think he had severe enough symptoms for a sinus infection, but suggested a strep test. Before I could even agree to the strep test( which is an additional fee) she was already opening the packaging for the test and was about to administer to my son. I stopped her and told her that he did not need a strep test as he has said his sore throat is not severe. She then stormed out of the office stating that her nurse would be back in to take my son's blood pressure. Dr Quinn never returned to see my son and we were left feeling rushed, disrespected and unresolved. We left GGP and will never return there again.
I have never posted a negative review on Yelp. All my reviews are positive with five stars except Golden Gate Pediatrics. read more
