Health Care

I recently had a horrible experience with a local doctor that I just had to share.

It all started when my friend Shirley received a preliminary diagnosis of cancer. The good news for Shirley is that it turned out to be an infection and not cancer. Her scare was the motivation for me to contact a dermatologist to have a red mark on my forehead checked out. I knew I needed to see a dermatologist and the only experience I had was when one of my sons saw one years ago for acne. I thought, why not use the same doctor. That was my first mistake, but not my last one with this guy!

I chose to make an appointment with a doctor with a Rheumatology & Dermatology practice in Cordova because my son had seen him and it was convenient to my home. I showed up for the appointment and paid the required fee to see the doctor. Once in the examining room the doctor vacillated between taking a biopsy and freezing the spot on my forehead and another on my back. He finally chose to freeze them - all the while he was facing the computer entering various notes and codes. He left the room and a woman entered and asked for $14 so they could freeze the two spots. I asked, "can't this wait until I check out?" She said no, collected my payment and left. The technician said, "she gets chewed out all the time for having to do this." I guess they thought I would stiff them for the $14!

Several weeks later I return to have my "spots" checked and they collect my copay at the door. The doctor comes in and looks at the spots then focuses on his computer all the time speaking with his back to me again. Honestly, I wish I had said to him, "Excuse me doctor, I'm over here, your patient, can't you take a few minutes and ignore your computer?" The long and short of it is I got in and out in a few minutes and decided that I would never seek treatment from this doctor again! That was before I heard from the insurance company.

I received my explanation of benefits (EOB) from my visits. I WAS SHOCKED TO SEE THAT the doctor HAD CHARGED ANOTHER $200 FOR THE FOLLOW UP VISIT! In my opinion this should have been a courtesy follow up... Obviously I was wrong.

Today I called the office and after requesting to speak with the office manager. I was given the third degree about why I needed to speak to her then placed on hold. I guess the normal procedure is to put the patient on hold for an extended period of time to review the charges and hope that I would hang up, eventually I got to speak to the manager. She said, "$200 was the normal charge" (my insurance only paid like $84 for customary and reasonable charges) and that, "dermatological visits were expensive." NO KIDDING!

To top it all off she said I still owe $7 and change for the visits after my payments and the insurance reimbursements. I asked her politely if she would waive those charges as a courtesy and she said something sweet like, "they don't do that."

Not so sweetly but still poiltely I said, "I will pay your bill but, I will never darken the door of the practice again, that the doctor has a terrible bedside manner and I would tell all my friends about my experience! Hence the blog post today!

By the way I asked my son about his experience years ago - he agreed that the guy has no bedside manner.

If you want to avoid my experience I'll be happy to share the name of the doctor with you.