Dr. Office blues

[coolcrystal 1]

I feel so alone.

I'm so upset with the people at my doctor's office. One of the girl's sense of humor is not so funny.. she's downright rude and irritating. I felt great going there until the day she told me she was going to submit my stuff to insurance without even having my 5 year history, which she failed to tell me my doc hadn't sent. I thought my doc had. She was like, "well, we'll just go ahead and submit and wait until they ask for it!" WTF?? why not just submit everything, especially when Aetna is involved.. ya know? From what I hear, they FIND reasons to turn people down. It was like she just didn't care at all. Then when I had called her to see if she did get my 5 year history, she was like, "I see you are going to make me work today!" and even hung up on me one time "by accident" of course.

So, finally she got everything and sent it to their insurance person to be submitted... So, I call that lady and left two messages, no call back. Sent her an email.. no response. I finally get ahold of her today and I was like, this is Crystal ______ I sent you an email and left you a voicemail last week.." and she put me on hold for about 5 minutes, and then came back and said, "HI Crystal, I need to call you back in 10 minutes".

In my email I had asked her when my stuff was submitted so I could mark it on my calendar and how long I should wait until I called to check back on it.

I feel like I just want to cry...

She just called me back saying that another girl is handling my file and that it is being faxed today, even though they've had my file for almost a week. I said, "why has it taken a week to fax it" and she was like, "well, we handle 6 sections (whatever that means)"...maybe doctors.. I don't know.

So, this whole time I thought it was submitted on the 14th and it's not getting faxed over until today... which means it's a holiday, which means, they won't even begin to work on it until tomorrow. I'm very upset. All this could have been submitted weeks ago had that one girl told me from the beginning she didn't get my 5 year history!

[mary1094 0]

is there a supervisor you can speak with??

[coolcrystal 1]

Call me paranoid, I'm a little nervous to talk to anybody about this for fear of retaliation or something...

[Kalia Jade 0]

It sounds like you haven't had the surgery yet, am I right? Is there any other doctor you could go to? It might require a little bit of traveling, but you always want the pros to outweigh the cons. My doctor is about 3.5 hours away from me. The drive isn't a whole lot of fun, but it is kind of a mini vacation of sorts. Plus I really like the doctor and his staff. Just a thought. Good luck!

[juliegeraci 7]

Crystal, I am sorry you are going through this. Good luck with your endeavor. It will be worth it.

[restricted 0]

My doctors office was very professional, and gave me a list of things to take care of. It was a pain, but I went down everything on the list. Once it was all done, I got a green light for surgery and am happily banded. The entire process from initial interview to being approved for surgery took about six weeks. I could have done it faster, but wasn't in a great rush. At all times the office staff were professional, helpful, and both the staff and I knew exactly what we expected of each other.

If you are uncomfortable at this point, it may be worthwhile to investigate other alternatives as things aren't likely to improve after surgery.

[coolcrystal 1]

Luckily since I live in the Dallas, Fort Worth area there are tons of very good lap band doctors at my disposal here.

I'm curious if I get my approval code if I can just take that to any other dallas doctor and get it done or if I have to stick with the one I picked out. But, I do like the doctor, this is the sad thing, just not a few on his staff...

[Marimaru 7]

I would call the office, and leave a message for the doctor. If they want a reason, tell them it's confidential. Then when he calls back, tell him that his staff is being incredibly rude, and you are concerned about your insurance approval, seeing as they evidently have no desire to be sure it's submitted right.

Often a doctor doesn't know their staff is misbehaving until they are told.

[pippinje 0]

Crystal,

I am having the SAME trouble with my dr. , who coincidentially is in Dallas as well. They had everything they needed on the 16th and everytime I call it's I will call you back later. I called three times today and each time, I will call you back later. I finally got a "tomorrow around lunch" out of her today. I am FURIOUS that this has still not been turned in. If there is no "tomorrow at lunch" when I call tomorrow I am asking for copies of my file and looking for another surgeon. Couldn't be any worse than where I am now. :biggrin:

[JosieK 120]

hi crystal,

my advice would be to get a new doctor.....

for me my doctor's staff has been an important part of my journey and they have made it very pleasant.

if the doctor has these type of incompetent people working for him....how much does he care for his patients?

i know you are probably anxious to get the ball rolling but this is very early in your process.

you are lucky to be in dallas...i've seen alot of people on this site that have great experiences up there

good luck.....

[restricted 0]

pippinje,

If I understand your post correctly, last Wednesday you believe your doctor had all the information necessary to proceed with your request for lap band surgery. That means, the office had this past Thursday and Friday to work on it. Saturday, Sunday were the weekend, and Monday was a holiday. They've had two work days (last Thursday and Friday) to process your entire medical history for the surgery, and you are furious?

[pippinje 0]

Restricted,

They actually had everything else way before that date. The only thing they were waiting for was my psych report. So to me this means everything should be ready to go and just awaiting this document, which is the way that the dr office has been portraying it. I have spoken with them on numerous occassions and was even told it would be turned into insurance by last Friday, yet here we are. It's not so much waiting for them to turn it into insurance that upsets me, it's the I will call you back with the case number and then they never do and the cycle just repeats itself again the next day. If they would give the proper expectations, I would be fine. I have asked them several times when should I call back and they tell me when, I call back and get another I will call you back. They had the report first thing Wednesday morning and they were open Monday so they have actually had 5 full working days. I guess I expect too much from people since I work in customer service and make sure to give my clients and accurate timeline for how and when their request will be completed. That way they don't have to call back. Sorry if I sounded a little pissy.

[faithmd 14]

pipp, I'd be furious as well. For the same reason you outlined, they had EVERYTHING else ans were waiting on one little thing.

I hand carried EVERYTHING to my surgeon's office (other than the psych eval) and the day I received a copy of that, I called them to make sure they had gotten it, too. Then I faxed them another copy, just in case.

They faxed my stuff over to the insurance company that same day. No reason if they have everything needed that they don't do it right then. That's what they get paid for. That's their job.

I as denied the first time around because I hadn't lost my 5% excess weight required by my insurance company. So the next month when I had lost it, I submitted my new MD note with the new weight on it to them and they faxed the WHOLE package over again the next day. They apparently have to resubmit the entire package again after a denial (my ins co that is).

I was fortunate, I had an answer in a couple of days. I understand for some folks it can be months for an approval or a denial.

Hang in there!

[pippinje 0]

Thanks faith. I appreciate your support. I will let you know when the deed is done. LOL

[pippinje 0]

Update:

Everything will be submitted tomorrow.

My P.C. came through for me.