Hi Folks,

I have a long tale of woe to tell, but I'm a bit rattled and emotional right now. So if I'm not making sense, please forgive me

Went to the O-band center who shares an office in manhattan with new life, new look surgery. My first visit was in July, with 3 subsequent visits for diet, Seotemeber, October and November. In between I had blood tests, a psyche consult, endoscopy, and two sleep studies. The studies yielded me a cpap machine.. To make a long story short, I was approved for sleeve surgery on December 6. That's the good news. The bad news is that I was never told why I needed the above procedures, just "show up for a endo, now a sleep study, now another sleep study, etc". The communication was terrible and when I questioned them they were somewhat elusive about answering me. I understand now, that I needed these tests in order to get an approval. The process did discover sleep apnea, and diabetes. They knew what they were doing and they knew the set way to obtain an approval.Ok, fine.

I began to suspect the only reasons for most of these visits was to bilk my insurance company for as much as they could. That the surgery would be icing on the cake, but that they were going to get as much $ as they could in the process. Now let me preface this to say that I was assured on more than one occasion that they would accept insurance as full payment (which I "think" they have.) I'll clarify that later on.

So back to approval. Once I was approved they immediately tried to convince me to have the surgery done robotically. I was fine with that until they wanted to fly me to California. I live in NY. They were persistent saying they would fly myself and my wife, put me up in a hotel, then to ambulatory surgery, and finally back to hotel with a nurse to take care of me at no cost to me??. REALLY WTH is that? Anyway, I declined and insisted on having it done here in Brooklyn at the Verbukh medical center. That was a month ago and I haven't heard anything from them since. They will not return my calls. Further the receptionist is curt and difficult.

Fed up, I contacted a local surgeon and asked if they would take the case. They will and I'm signing a release for them so they can get the records from Verbukh; who btw, were not thrilled about giving them up. I foresee problems obtain them

Now, back to insurance payments I mentioned earlier. I decided to look at my insurance claims today and surprise surprise, Verbukh has billed Aetna over 40K!. Oh but that's not the best art. According to my Aetna, they have only paid about 25K leaving 15K owed ( my co-pay) Now, I have not gotten a bill from Verbukh and I may be wrong, they may simply have billed Aetna, and accepted that as full payment, but 40K?? For three visits, 2 sleep studies, a cpap mating and endo? Are they serious? On the other hand, I may be right and will eventually get a whopper bill.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

B

Do you know what the allowed amounts were? They may have billed 40k and have gotten paid what they got paid and not bill you because they got paid 100% of the allowed amount

Do you know what the allowed amounts were? They may have billed 40k and have gotten paid what they got paid and not bill you because they got paid 100% of the allowed amount

Yes, and that's what I think happened. Like I said, I haven't gotten any bills yet. The last visit was in October

I am very sorry over what happened for you. The office should have helped you with that.

I'll pray that you don't get any bills as you have been severely mistreated

Still no communication form this organization. I made the decision to transfer to a local doctor. Started the process today.