They seem to be pretty good on the medical side, hence I gave them the extra star. But, man-o-man…read morethey can butcher up the bigger part of a customer's experience from front desk, insurance, file maintenance and communication.
I arrived early for my appointment with Oasis ENT. I had completed everything online via the link Oasis ENT sent me days in advance . . . name, address, PCP information, insurance, questionnaire; everything.
I had no idea of and had no knowledge Ascent Audiology even existing until the Oasis ENT employee checked me in for my prescheduled appointment wth them, said everything looks good, then told me to follow her out the front door, down the sidewalk and into a building sharing the parking lot with Oasis ENT. The Oasis ENT employee said Ascent Audiology will perform the testing, then Oasis ENT will finish up, leaving me standing at the counter of Ascent Audiology as the Oasis ENT employee walked back out the lobby door we walked in together never to see her again.
What the . . . ? In any case, I complied.
The Ascent Audiology employee then handed me a clipboard with a bunch of printed information asking me to sign. My name was misspelled, my birthdate was wrong, my address had a misspelling, etc. Can you imagine the nightmare this would cause with the insurance company? Wrong birthdate?! Name misspelled?!
Rejected claims. EOBs not generated due to errors. Threats of collection activities, including, but not limited to third party. We've all been thru this over the years in the healthcare industry and, until now, I thought technology took care of preventing this nonsense from ever occurring again.
Wrong! I asked how in the world so much information could be messed up . . . I had input it all in advance myself online. This is when I found out they use a system called "swivel chair technology". It means even though you provide all the accurate information days in advance online to Oasis ENT, Oasis ENT and Ascent Audiology do not use the internet to manage data even though the internet was invented in the early 1990s.
The Ascent Audiology process is an Ascent Audiology employee sits in their chair and reads the information on one login screen from Oasis ENT, then swivels their chair to another screen to retype the information into the Ascent Audiology system. That's right, they swivel in their chair back-and-forth typing keystroke after keystroke everything off of one system into another system. No connection. No compatibility. No communication. Just a keystroke-by-keystroke re-entry of data from one system to another.
If you have competent employees, that is one thing. And, even then, no one is perfect, not even the most competent of competent people. But, throw in an incompetent employee in a situation like this and what do you get? Misspelled names, birthdates not checked, addresses with typos and screwed up billing, accounts and EOBs that are worthless.
And who is left to deal with this mess? You, the customer, that's who. You are left with the "your insurance has been rejected", "your bill is overdue", etc. messes you have to clean up.
Agsin, they may be decent on the medical service side, but not worth the other just as important and time consuming problems on the front and back side.
Experienced in the IT profession, especially in eliminating the old-school "swivel chair technology" system from decades ago, Jacqueline said she would have their manager, Denise, call me so I can walk them thru what can be done. But instead, weeks and months later, just the sound of crickets is all I have heard.
