ComplaintsforTwin County Physician Practice

• Initial Complaint

  06/15/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I went to the medical practice in April with an illness. They did a bloodwork analysis and also two other followup bloodwork analysis in May. They did not check with my insurance to see what lab was approved and instead sent the blood to their local Twin County hospital for analysis. The result was the hospital charging over $5000 and ultimately leaving me with over a $1600 bill for me to pay. This type of bloodwork should cost less than $500 total but the hospital charges much more for any service. The medical practice refuses to accept responsibility for sending the bloodwork to the wrong lab and says its my fault. Please help!

  Business response

  06/21/2023

  First and foremost, I want to thank you for sharing your concerns.  We take all concerns seriously so that we can ensure the best patient experience possible.  We do apologize for your dissatisfaction with the processing and billing of your lab work.  We would like to share some information with you in an attempt to assist with understanding our processes for obtaining consent for labs, sending labs for processing and the associated billing.  When a patient initially comes to the medical office, he/she is asked to sign a general consent to treat and a consent to bill insurance.  This is a consent that allows the medical practice to complete the appropriate workup and bill appropriate.  There are some procedures that require a pre-approval of insurance, and those procedures which require a separate consent however, this is not required for most labs.  On each visit, the provider verbally discusses the plan of treatment with the patient which could include further work up such as lab work.  The patient does have the right to refuse any service.  Our standard practice is to draw bloodwork at the clinic and send it to our local hospital for processing unless it requires testing that the hospital can’t perform at which time, the lab work is sent to *******.  When obtaining the lab, patients can request that we use a different lab provider that participates with their insurance, and we will honor that request if the clinic participates with that lab provider.  Unfortunately, we cannot control the costs that are set by the lab provider.      As a courtesy, we did speak with our hospital about this occurrence and have been advised that they will offer a 20% discount on your balance if paid in full.  As a result of your sharing this concern, we have made some changes within the office so that patients are more aware of our processes.  Signs will be placed in the lab areas notifying patients that all labs will be sent to our local hospital for processing unless a patient requests another lab provider.  We are also training staff to verbalize during lab draws what labs are being drawn and that these labs will be sent to the local hospital or ******* for processing depending on the lab being drawn.  We will also provide brochures in our office on Lab Direct services that the hospital offers as an option to paying for labs directly as opposed to billing insurance, which at times can be a cheaper alternative.We again thank you for sharing your concerns and are hopeful that this assists with understanding our processes.  We know that healthcare and insurance regulations can be challenging to navigate therefore we will use your feedback in an attempt to further education our patients.  

  Customer response

  06/26/2023

  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.I'd like to thank Twin County Physicians for changing the office policy to better inform patients of less expensive lab work alternatives. Regards, **** *******

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