At best he is incompetent, at worst, he is a crook. He is probably a combination of the two. I picked him from my insurance book. I visited him in his home/office. he had no staff, and was answering the phones, taking insurance, and acting like a receptionist all by himself. I handed him my insurance card, and he wrote down my name and insurance number. He did not even have a photocopy machine. The first thing he said to me is, "you have giant feet, do need to have your shoes specially made? My shoe size is a 12 1/2- 13. Hardly giant, and it would be strange that a person who claimed to work with feet for a career would be so shocked by size 13 feet. He then told me he wanted operate on both of my feet. I declined, and went to NYU, where I saw an orthopedic foot surgeon, who told me that this was nonsense, I did not require any such foot surgery. Things only got worse with Simon from there. I began to get bills and threatening letters and phone calls from his billing/collection agency. This agency, was very dirty, just like Simon. They had no address listed, only a P.O. Box. They accused me of not having insurance, and threatened me with suit, and to ruin my credit. They claimed that I did not just owe him the contracted amount by the insurance, but I owed him his full rate, which was at least twice as much. I explained to them that I had insurance, and it must have been billed wrong. I asked the full name of their company, and their physical address, and their names. They refused to provide me with any of that. When I tried to look up this business to report them, I could not find them existing anywhere, except in their threatening calls and letters. They finally agreed to bill it again, and to no surprise, the insurance claimed that this was not a valid insurance number. They said "once may be a mistake, but on the second time, no mistake. You are lying about having insurance. Now you must pay us the full amount. This was accompanied by more threats of suit, ruining my credit, and again, they refused to give the full name of the company, nor their physical address. Neither Simon nor his thugs apparently entertained the possibility that the insurance number that he wrote down, was not what was printed on my card. I called his office several times, and left messages, but he did not return my calls. They continued to send me threatening letters. When I finally got ahold of him, he screamed at me, calling me a faker, and somehow claiming that I produced a counterfeit insurance card, instead of the simple answer that he wrote down the numbers wrong. So, we are left with podiatrist who was shocked to see a size 13 foot, wanted to do unnecessary surgery, did not even have a photocopy machine, cannot write down an insurance number correctly, and uses dirty collections to try to get even more money than he is entitled to, and screams at people who resist this fraudulent activity. read more
