I have not had what I would call a good experience with this health care system. Have been involved with 4 specialty clinics and 3 of them left alot to the imagination. At Guthrie, you don't have an MD, you have who they say you will have. If the physician you were seeing left the practice... no notification and they just put you in with someone else or cancel your appt.
2 of the specialty clinics for certain put profits, alternate income streams and such well above patient care. When I balked at $5K hearing aides that my insurance would not cover, the audiologist then got very rude. I was there for treatment of Benign Proximal Vertigo... yes I have a hearing loss but I simply could not find any way to cover $5K of uncovered expenses. I was then informed they would be "all over us" until we did this because if I didn't get my hearing corrected, I would become depressed. No..I wasn't going to let my husband be demeaned or harassed, he felt bad enough that our limited income couldn't handle this. I left the office, never to return. Multiple visits a week at over $200 per visit ($40-50 co-pay) When they could have shown me the eppley maneuvers the first visit. Profits over patients.
Endocrinology... complete and total joke. Many act in an unprofessional manner. Several Monday Morning appts cancelled last minute... one while we were on our way to Sayre. I didn't get a feeling they cared even a little bit except to collect a co-payment for a 5 min visit every 3 months, if I missed one I was threatened with not getting scripts for my diabetic supplies, metformin, insulin and delivery devices. The Diabetes Nurse Educator in my experience has always been in a tizzy. Getting an appt took months, even then she had no clue why I was there. Pushed the latest and greatest insulin pump then announced we would have a $2K co-pay which we could not afford. She then proceeded to demean my spouse who already worked 7 days a week... if we cared enough about my health we would come up with it. Well, if she had bothered to check with our insurance, we had a rider that covered diabetes 100% Medtronics discovered that. We went forward through medtronics, got the pump and 1 hr after the delivery of the device, I got a call cancelling my appt to start setting up and using the device, another appt was not to be had for 4-6 mos. See a trend here?
Guthrie quite possibly gets sizable payments from the medical industry for prescribing devices, meds, surgeries...etc I could be wrong, but based on my family's experience it's very plausible.
Don't pay your bill in such a way that this month a payment arrives on the 2nd of the month, and then send a payment that arrives on the 30th of the month... because if you fail to make a payment next calendar month... they will send you to their collection agency. Unbeknownst to us, I had them send a balance of less than 0.50 to their own collection agency ( another income stream)... yes less than 50 cents, because we didn't know or get any communication... it sat there and yes they reported it to the credit agencies.... the check amount was read differently than what it was written for. My credit was dinged, upon contacting all the major credit reporting agencies... they investigated and within 48 hrs all 3 removed the report and eventually restored my credit.
Profits over patients. Misdiagnosis galore... misdiagnosis means more visits and more $$ for them.
I know that every system, most all providers someone will have an issue with, however that said... it's been with every specialty. Guthrie overall fails to realize I choose my physicians/NP's/PA's if they happen to be part of a larger group... fine. That group isn't the entity who decides who treats me. I no longer have any association with Guthrie Medical.
In the event of a medical emergency I may not have a choice but to be taken to Robert Packard/Guthrie. But I will be questioning diagnosis etc. My family has simply had too many misdiagnosis come out of the ER, one of them being shingles... 3 times misdiagnosed and by the time it was correctly diagnosed it had gotten into the eye. read more