Usually when looking for a practitioner, I call my insurance company to see if the practice I want to go to is in the network. In this case, I didn't bother to call my insurance company, because I was reassured by 2 different people at Downtown Women's that I would only have to pay a $20 co-pay and my yearly exam would be covered 100%. Then they urged me to sign a credit card authorization that would allow them to charge "extra expenses" to my credit card. I was assured by the very "motherly" receptionist that the form was only because of "insurance fraud" and that I wouldn’t be charged. I am a native New Yorker in my 40s, and have never been asked to sign something like this. I had some labs done, then sat down in the lobby and called my insurance provider, only to discover that I had been lied to. I was told that the clinic wasn’t in my insurance network, and I'd have to pay a $250 "out of network deductible", in addition to 30% of the services that were provided. I felt totally duped.
In addition to the deceptive practices of this physician's group, I didn't even get to see a doctor, but instead was sent in to an NP named Elisabeth Newton. She didn’t listen to anything I had to say and wouldn’t refill my Pill prescription, which was given to me by a board certified ob/gyn--why this nurse thought she knew better than a doctor, and was presumptuous enough to ignore protocol and change a long-standing prescription, is beyond me!
When I later called my credit card company to explain about the waiver I had been asked to sign, they immediately turned the card off. This is a shady practice-telling patients that their insurance is "accepted", and then collecting extra fees, because in reality, the insurance company won't cover it all. I have physicians in my family who say that this is an unethical way of doing business, and that someone at the clinic should have explained that I wasn't totally covered. But the clinic wanted the cash instead!
Go somewhere else, this practice doesn’t deserve your business!
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