Awful customer service!
First, let me explain that The Joint charges in advance (not in arrears) for monthly membership fees, which is totally fine - I just wanted to set that stage for those not familiar with their billing process. My billing cycle is on the 26th of every month. On 03/26, my HSA Visa was charged as usual. On 03/27 (as confirmed by Amber M.), the clinics around the metro area started closing due to the pandemic. So from 03/27 through 04/26, I obviously could not use any of the 4 visits I'm entitled to from my membership. Mind you that The Joint had also freezed everyone's membership and did not bill for the following month (in my case, would've been 04/26) due to the closures, which works out just fine. They then reopened around the first week of May, but with only limited resources (one doctor per site) and can only be seen by appointments. So I was able to make an appointment mid-May (05/15 maybe) and last Friday, 05/22.
Today (05/29), I had an appointment at 4:30 PM and arrived just a few minutes early. Scanned in my membership key fob, but the coordinator at the front desk (Bessy) informed me that my last automated billing (05/27) had failed as my HSA Visa had just expired (May 2020) when they attempted to charge it for the following month of service - would be for June. Bessy, then informed me that she could not check me in unless the system is updated with my payment card - understandable. I then asked Bessy politely if they can just see me now for my appointment since I was already there and didn't want to have to reschedule my appointment, and I can call her immediately when I get home with the new expiration date (and also given that I had remaining unused visits from the March billing as explained earlier), but she apparently couldn't do that either as she called another clinic.
On a side note, when I initially signed up last year, I also didn't have my HSA Visa with me at that time, but it wasn't an issue. The doctor had performed my initial consultation and as soon as I got home, I called immediately with my HSA card so they can use it for my monthly membership fee. All has been good since.
Going back to today's appointment, I then asked (again calm and politely) if there was someone in billing or a corporate office I can contact regarding this matter, but before she can answer, the doctor (Dr. Phil Sarver) must have heard our conversation over the wall while he was working another patient, went up to the front and gave me this snarky response that "if we can't check you in, then you can't be seen", so essentially telling me to go home, bring an updated payment card and make another appointment. Ok, so I'm in my 40's, a responsible and working professional at Boeing. I have always been a kind and reasonable gentleman, but this response from Dr. Sarver pretty much put the nail in the coffin for me. I find it extremely rude and lack of customer service for the way he came across. It's as if I didn't even get a chance to finish my sentences. I'm very understanding, but I would at least expect The Joint to be understanding as well, given we as patients have also been patient and understanding with their situation.
At that point, Bessy was able to get me connected to the Yosemite clinic and spoke to Amber M. on my personal phone. Granted, I was already a bit irate as I have already explained the situation to Bessy who explained it to Amber, which by the way I also tried explaining to Dr. Sarver (but felt that he just didn't want to hear it), and now I had to explain again to Amber. This was such an awful experience that I just wanted to cancel my membership. Amber then said that she would call me back in "5 seconds" after she gets through with her customer, which was fine with me. But she never called, so I called again a half hour or so later. Then she said, she'll call me back in 2 minutes after yet another client she was dealing with. Of course she didn't call me back in "2 minutes", but I patiently waited till she called. And now that I'm home, she and I started from the beginning again from the 03/27 billing. I had all my facts straight as I was able to login to my HSA account and reviewed all the dates. At the end of the day, I just wanted to cancel my membership and get a prorated refund for my unused visits from the March billing, but she couldn't even do that for me and suggested that I should go to another clinic to be seen if I no longer feel comfortable in going to the clinic closer to me at Southlands. So here I am, expecting a call back on Monday from the operations manager.
This is such an awful and frustrating experience for me. I think I would not have made this to be a big deal if Dr. Sarver could've at least shown a bit of empathy rather than his snarky response. I had an appointment and they could've at least fulfilled that appointment given I had unused visits from previous billing cycle I could not use due to the closures. read more