I'm an IBD patient who has been getting biologic infusions since 2009, been using outpatient infusion centers since 2019 after getting them at my doctor's office prior to that. Started going to Thrivewell in 2024 because my previous infusion center of 5 years stopped giving my medication so I was forced to find a new infusion center. Never in 17 years have I had as many issues with obtaining this medication in a timely manner as I have had with Thrivewell over the past year and a half.
If, like me, you have health insurance where TPAs (third party administrators) are involved, good luck trying to get anything authorized in a timely manner. Whenever something changes or expires, they have no idea how to handle it and it becomes an entire stressful ordeal that takes weeks to resolve, and as a result I've ended up missing infusions that I need in order to function like a normal human being and not be in pain, which if you know anything about IBDs can be debilitating. The final straw was when they let my most recent authorization expire this past January and then proceeded to give me the run around for 2 MONTHS claiming that they couldn't get an authorization because they "weren't allowed" to create a username and password needed for the third party website that's used to get authorizations from my insurance company, then they were "back and forth" with my insurance, then they didn't know where or how to send the authorization request, then they were given the wrong fax number, then they don't know who to speak to, and THEN they said they sent it and expedited it but it was still pending after 2 weeks, etc etc, blah blah blah, excuse after excuse.
Finally after I missed an infusion this month and my anxiety and rage were through the roof from 2 months of this nonsense, I had enough and decided I didn't want to be treated there anymore at all. Lo and behold, this other infusion center that I'm in the process of transferring care to had an authorization within ONE DAY and everything else taken care of by the end of the following day. So explain to me why this other place was able to do what they were supposed to do in 2 days with no issues and Thrivewell just sat there and continued to make excuses and not do anything properly for months to the point where my treatment was in jeopardy?
Also I later came to find out that in the year and a half I treated with them they never even billed my insurance, but rather were just going through my copay assistance until the funds were depleted, because I never got any statements from Thrivewell (I'm not complaining but I know my medical benefits and what my out of pocket responsibilities are so it seems iffy) or EOBs from my insurance for these infusions, and I checked my claims online with my insurance company and not one of them went towards my infusions. Why the hell am I giving you my insurance information then? The copay assistance program is supposed to cover at least a portion if not all of my out of pocket costs after my insurance is billed, it's not supposed to be used to pay for the whole thing as if I had no insurance! These are EXPENSIVE meds and literally once those funds are depleted that's it for the year, and then I'm hit with a massive bill for my deductible in the middle of the year (when my first or second infusion of the calendar year should have knocked it out) for anything else I have to do medically. It's a shame because the Manhasset location itself and the staff there were very nice, but the back end is completely incompetent and shady and needs to be investigated. I work in a related field dealing with health insurance and if my company did this we'd be in big trouble.
I don't and will never recommend this place to anyone who gets infusions. Vivo Infusion or Local Infusion are both wonderful, go to one of those if you can. read more
