I have been a patient of Dr. Patel's for a little over a year…read more
First thing I did was an intro visit, followed by a routine annual physical exam visit. Dr Patel was fine, not exceptional but he listened to my concerns and advised adequately. His office, however, for reasons unknown, entered codes for the physical exam visit that did NOT correspond to a routine physical. As a result, even though there was no real treatment involved, my rather expensive insurance billed us for about $250 for an annual physical that should have been covered completely by insurance. My very attentive wife complained to the office--after THREE in-person visits to the office, they corrected the coding inputs to show a routine physical, and my insurance covered all of the costs. Fast forward one year, again i called in for a 'routine annual physical'. Again, as before, I had blood drawn for the testing he ordered, and i showed up for my appointment for a routine physical. Decent experience with the doctor. Then, sadly, again, my insurance billed us for about $280 of costs for an annual physical that should be COMPLETELY FREE under my expensive health insurance---according to my health insurance office. Again, my wife is trying to work through the process to get this corrected; but it is simply, plainly and totally UNACCEPTABLE for this situation to recur.
I blame the front office rather than Dr Patel for this repeated error; but it is unacceptable for this to occur once, let alone twice. I will be changing doctors, not because I dislike Dr Patel (who I consider competent), but because his front office has proven to be incompetent, and the cost of their incompetence gets paid by us, either by paying for overbilled healthcare costs (I pay over $1000/mo for health insurance; then in spite of great insurance that clearly says it covers basic preventive medicine, we got billed for over $250/yr--for a second time), and then having to fight with the office to correct billing codes that Patel's office are obviously entering incorrectly. Presumably they use the wrong code for their own benefit, because we complained to them the first time and they corrected it--after we went to the office THREE times...and my insurance paid for everything. I presume they must benefit from screwing us, or it would not have occurred again!
Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, shame on Patel's office. I am leaving this Doctor because of this recurring issue, that tells me their front office is not paying attention to me, the patient. A doctor cannot be any better than his front office, and this one failed us two times out of two. Game over.
