It has been some time since this experience, but I told myself I would write a review after a…read morenumber of months had passed, and I cooled down a bit. Honestly, as I write this, it is not very fun to recall, but I hope the Doctor will read this, and this will help future patients.
Type of Care: Adult wisdom teeth removal
Care Quality: To be absolutely clear, the doctor was excellent. The work he did was done very well, and there were no complications after the procedure. He was awesome and a great personality.
Office Experience:
#1 - walked in for the appointment, and they said we had canceled it. We never canceled it. People don't prep and show up on time for wisdom teeth removal appointments if they've canceled them. Their office staff had, from what we could decipher, been the ones who erroneously canceled the appointment on the same date and time that they had called us weeks earlier SOLELY for the purpose of telling us how much our out-of-pocket would be. There was no discussion whatsoever during the call about whether or not we were proceeding with the appointment. We were proceeding with it.
The doctor, being a professional, thankfully managed to keep the appointment as scheduled. No problems there. Thank goodness, because who wants to prep and come back again to have their wisdom teeth removed?! Again, this doctor is very good!
That leads to #2 - during that call weeks earlier, again the sole purpose of said call from them to us was to relay our out-of-pocket cost, the lady said the cost to us would be $50. $50. 5-0. We made them repeat that numerous times, and the lady said, "yes, great deal isn't it? Your insurance must be good! We'll see you on your appt date...Us: yes, we'll be there."
Soon after the procedure, we got a bill for well over $1,000 out of pocket! After a lot of back-and-forth with the office and our insurance company, the cost came down to $900. In the end, this was the correct cost to us based on the way the office coded the procedure (coding...very impt factor - please take note) and what our insurance policy would cover. The office staff would not concede any miscommunication or misinformation on their part. It was both shocking and disheartening to be treated the way we were.
So, just beware. Most important moral of this story is make sure you, as the patient, do ALL the research on how much your procedure might cost you out of pocket, because unfortunately, the office staff failed in that regard. You can't rely on their word. They do not know. They don't have any idea how the procedure might get coded, medically, in advance of it, and maybe the doctor and the nurses can't even predict that -- and that is what the office staff should have told us, but didn't. They should have been honest about what they knew and what they didn't, but they weren't. Their actions unnecessarily led to a lot of heartache, headache, and financial surprise.