Went to see doctor Sims to get an opinion outside of my area since I had kind of been getting the run around locally of just getting passed between doctors. I confirmed beforehand over the phone that they took my insurance.
Come time for my appointment his office was very nice as well as his staff extremely friendly. I had brought my binder of X-rays and MRIs with me so I can present everything to the doctor. Upon getting to an exam room and explaining my situation the nurse left then came back and said they wanted to do X-rays of my feet. I told them I already had two sets as well as MRIs of both feet and that I had the discs with me as well as the reports. They insisted that they do what would be the fourth set of X-rays I had gotten on my feet in 2 years and they would not look at the multiple sets of identical X-rays I tried to provide. "Don't worry, your insurance is paying for it" one nurse said with a laugh.
Rest of the visit went fine, doctor was friendly but ultimately unhelpful and referred me to yet another doctor which at this point was expected. I asked for a copy of the X-rays they took on a disk to add to my growing collection now and they told me they "didn't do that" but since I already had multiple identical X-rays at this point it didn't really matter.
I thought everything was fine until a few months later a $500 bill comes in the mail citing the X-rays my insurance would not cover. When I called they simply said it wasn't their responsibility to confirm what my insurance would cover. (Then why assure me my insurance will pay for it during my visit???)
Seems like they just wanted to milk my insurance provider for some extra cash and which then left me on the hook to pay for X-rays I didn't need when they could have just looked at the 3 other identical sets I had gotten, the most recent of which were less than 6 months old.
I guess the moral here is contact your insurance yourself to make sure they will cover your visit AND any unnecessary x-rays the office might want to do because they'll just say whatever they need to at the time of your appointment and bill you for it later. read more
