Twice this year I have had the unfortunate experience of visiting the Emergency room, once for a broken finger, and once because my wife (The beautiful Sya) was ill. The hospital that we used was Hurley Medical Center(But never again). Both times the waits, the treatment, the patient care, the cleanliness, and the incredibly rude assistants have been unacceptable. They treat everyone as a beggar, they treat everyone as a druggie and they almost universally treat patients as if they were an inconvenience to their day. The only exception to this has been the department that collects your insurance information (of course, if we did not have great insurance I wonder if they would treat us differently).
Both times we have received bills after the fact that say we owe further money to an Associated Radiologists of Flint, so I contacted Hurley to ask why they do not provide the billing information to one of their own departments or contractors, they informed me that they provide each doctor with a face sheet containing that data along with the x-rays/ultrasounds etc that they examine. But the doctor does not return them to their own billing department, or just does not care to do so. I called their (Assoc Radiologists of Flint) billing department and they informed me that they have an electronic connection to Hurley and they only bill patients directly when it glitches, and they persisted in this lie over and over again on the phone. When I asked to speak to a supervisor they dumped me to a voicemail box. I hate incompetence and lying, and this morning their agency has demonstrated both along with an amazing amount of hubris. If they cannot manage billing I have to wonder if their physicians are any more reliable. A good office staff makes or breaks a doctor and theirs are breaking.
Amazing that they can bill you without having you sign a single piece of paper authorizing the treatment first. Really, there is nothing in place to stop them from billing people and telling them that they have to prove they did not have work done before turning it over to a collection agency.
Both times we have provided all of our insurance information, we have double coverage and both are decent plans, both times they have dropped the ball. I am highly tempted to force them to turn it to a credit agency and then force them to take me to court and prove they exercised something RESEMBLING due diligence. At this point the supervisors voicemail box waits, and I will update this as I hear anything new. I could just give them all the billing data, but I think they need to fix their system and stop inconveniencing every patient.
As soon as I have time to do so I will describe just how rotten of a healthcare environment we experienced at Hurley.