Business ProfileforWichita Falls Gastroenterology Assoc.

I contacted GI Associates who advise me my previous doctor had left (Dr H*) and scheduled me 6 weeks out with a new doctor after confirming to me that he was board certified in Gastroenterology. At this initial contact with GI Associates, they (GI Associates) collected all of my PII/PHI including insurances.
Subsequently, GI Associates without contacting me moved my appointment and time to a new date/time which would not work. GI Associates answer was to move the appointment out another 6 weeks. When this happened a second time, I spoke with the GI Associates practice administrator who could not explain why these abnormalities (moving appointment, no contact, fact the doctor I was scheduled with is not board certified per TX medical license) and was moved to a 10 January 2022 appointment with Dr. W*****.
During the week of 3 January I contacted GI Associates to confirm the appointment, requested they make sure Dr. W***** had all the labs and findings from November 2021 and asked if there was any additional paperwork I needed to complete. The response from the phone attendant at GI Associates was "we have everything, just need your insurance cards and medication list". On 7 January this information stated by the phone attendant was confirmed by the practice administrator after I received yet another text and phone call from GI Associates.

On 10 January 2022 (day of appointment) about 3 hours before my appointment, I was texted to fill out forms online. The link from GI Associates is non-functional and when I went to GI Associates, I was presented with seven (7) documents to complete, several requiring duplicative PII/PHI information. As the protected individual, I elected to indicate 'see records on file'. The practice administrator issued an ultimatum that the PII/PHI duplicative information had to be completed on each and every form or they would not honor the appointment.

The practice administrator stated she did not care to understand how vulnerable these duplicative data requests made the patients. Additionally GI Associates privacy information has not been updated since 2014.

Based on my experience, while the actual medical care might be good, the administrative side is non-patient oriented and puts patients at great risk for loss of PII/PHI. You might or might not be aware that the highest value/price is for PHI and attendant PII acquired from healthcare providers since it has the largest collection of information and when combined with insider threat supported by multiple duplicative PII/PHI sets of information is only second to 'data at rest' in hardcopy or electronic form(s).