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Orrex

(63,084 posts)
Tue Mar 11, 2014, 04:30 PM Mar 2014

Not exactly a health question, but a question about seeing a doctor

If you're visiting a particular doctor for the first time, and halfway through the appointment you realize that she is a complete asshole, what is your obligation? If you leave, can you be billed for the whole appointment? Can you appeal? How might one "shop around" for the best doctor without actually going through appointments?

During my college years I visited an optometrist who was an utter jackass. He seemed to be seething with anger throughout the appointment, he was unable to contain his irritation over my responses to the better/worse interrogation, and he nearly burst into flame in rage because I had trouble putting in contact lenses. I completed the appointment and wore the glasses for years, but I warned everyone I knew to stay away from him.

That was many years ago, and if faced with a similarly objectionable healer today, I would tell him where to stick his eye chart and walk out of the office. But where does that leave me? If I wind up with an unbearable jerk, what recourse do I have?

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Shrike47

(6,913 posts)
1. You pay for the complete visit, but you walk if you must.
Tue Mar 11, 2014, 04:34 PM
Mar 2014

I did a few years ago. Due to a MRSA infection, I was supposed to see a doctor daily. I walked out of a Sunday visit with a fill-in doc when it became clear I knew a lot more than he did about my problem and treatment. But, of course, the visit was billed as though he changed the dressing he was supposed to change.

 

Voice for Peace

(13,141 posts)
2. I've seen many idiot doctors.. best to ask about this when you make the appointment.
Tue Mar 11, 2014, 04:35 PM
Mar 2014

If you hire a plumber and he doesn't fix your toilet,
but charges you an arm and a leg, do you pay him?

Orrex

(63,084 posts)
7. True, but I don't usually intend to see the same film twice a year
Tue Mar 11, 2014, 05:59 PM
Mar 2014

And if a movie sucks, I'm out $10.

I think it's fair to have a higher expectation of a trained and licensed medical professional.

lostincalifornia

(3,639 posts)
10. That may be, but you just don't go back. I understand your point though. You believe what you paid
Tue Mar 11, 2014, 06:40 PM
Mar 2014

for was not part of the contract, expectations. You can try to protest the bill, say I didn't pay for a service to get insulted, but if they do not agree they may get a collection agency after you. You can try to make a claim in small claims court. Also, if he is part of a medical group, you can complain and see if they will drop the bill.


unblock

(51,974 posts)
5. depends. if they billed for a procedure they didn't do, that's fraud.
Tue Mar 11, 2014, 05:28 PM
Mar 2014

insurance fraud if it went through your insurance.

if it's just an "office visit" there's not much they have to do to show you visited the office. but if they billed for changing dressing and didn't, you can certainly tell the insurance company that they billed for a procedure you didn't receive.

or simpler, just tell the staff that that's what you'll do if they even try to bill you.

Warpy

(110,900 posts)
6. You can fire an unbearable jerk.
Tue Mar 11, 2014, 05:41 PM
Mar 2014

However, think about what you're hiring Jerkface for. If Jerkface is at all competent in treating you, I'd just put up with it.

I can tell you there are a few specialties that seem to attract people with the bedside manner of a puff adder with a toothache. They're great docs, just failures at being human.

If you think any of your concerns are just being blown off, definitely ask for another primary. If you're being treated appropriately, just fantasize about what you'd like to do to her (fire ants in the underwear?) and be thankful that medical system speedups will limit your face to face contact.

Orrex

(63,084 posts)
9. Good point.
Tue Mar 11, 2014, 06:01 PM
Mar 2014

If my pizza is good, I don't really care if the guy who made it is a jerk.

I'm in the "shopping around" phase, and I'm hoping to avoid dealing with an asshole who will make me want to avoid doctors for another ten years.

Heddi

(18,312 posts)
12. I'm a nurse, and I *gasp* work for an insurance company
Wed Mar 12, 2014, 08:31 PM
Mar 2014

I work in a clinic run by an insurance company.

I recently had 2 bad MD experiences.

I had a really bad experience at the eye dr. Every 10 minutes he would walk out the room and come back in 5 minutes later for no reason. Just left me sitting there in the literal dark. He acted very nasty towards me when I answered questions that I guess weren't to his liking. He interrupted me constantly and was a total jerk and actually argued with me when he was doing the "A or B, 1 or 2" which is clearer thing. I KNOW WHAT I SEE...I'm 38 years old, have been wearing glasses since I was 3. I KNOW WHICH ONE IS CLEARER, ASSHOLE.

I told him I was having eye discomfort and pain and I had to tell him FOUR TIMES and then finally, as he was about to walk me out at the end of the visit I said "yeah remember how I told you four times about the searing pain and feeling of a foreign object in my left eye...ya think it would be a good idea to, yanno, check it out SINCE YOU'RE AN OPTOMETRIST1?!? He huffed and quickly looked at my eyeball with a Woods Lamp and literally threw a business card at me for a colleague and said "you're here with vision insurance. This is a medical problem, not a vision problem." asshole. Cherry on the cake was when he charged me $360 for Rx eyeglasses. I have a $200 frame allowance and $150 lens allowance. I knew i may go over on the lenses b/c of my astigmatism and the tinting, but over by an additional $360 on top of the $350 that my insurance pays?

fuck
that
shit

I didn't even think about the cost until I was laying in bed that night and I was like "oh fuck no" and I called my insurance company, who is also my employer, and told them what an absolutely dismal experience I had. THen I told them what he wanted to charge me for my Rx sunglasses. I told them I was very unhappy with the service, and I had paid $20 copay for the visit and $40 copay for the glasses. I told them he was nasty, argumentative, and I told them he was arguing with me over my vision test results and that because of that, I didn't trust that he would give me the right glasses Rx. I told them I'd like to appeal the claim, that I'd like to go to another optician and get another exam and order new glasses from another person.

They were right with me. The customer service rep called the office, told them of my complaint, cancelled the claim and didn't deduct that $$ from my benefits. I went to a new Optho and got a REAL exam from a NICE person.

The second visit was to a fertility Dr. He was nice enough but they fucked up my labwork, and sent the wrong blood tubes, and didn't prepare the urine properly for one test, and didn't order the 3rd test they were supposed to. However, I noticed they put forth $400 in lab charges for labs that weren't done, or were done improperly, or that were run and resulted but not the proper labs for me (one was a gonorrhea and chlamydia urine test, which wasn't ordered by the Dr and wasn't supposed to be ordered, but that's what was run and resulted)

I have an HRA, so my deductables and copays come from my $$ fund that my employer puts $$ into every month. The total bill after discounts for labs was close to $300 and fuck that, they fucked up and I'm not paying for that.

The office offered to have the labs redrawn and re-sent but the person I spoke with was such a rude ass shitstain that there's no way I'm ever going back to their office. She's like "oh yeah well really no big deal I mean really what's the big deal serioously oh yeah we were busy these things happen." THESE THINGS HAPPEN? what if it was my husband's sperm they lost? Or embryo's? Not a very trusting view of their chain of command.

So again I called the insurance co, explained what happened, explained I wasn't happy to pay for the wrong tests and unordered tests and I got all the $$ refunded back into my account.

TL : DR version:

call your insurance company and dispute the claim. Tell them that the MD was rude and that the rudeness makes you question any reccomendations or treatments you received, and you'd like to dispute the claim and go to another PCP for another checkup. Be persistent. If they balk, ask them if there is anything they can do to rectify this, because you had such an unpleasant experience with this Dr.

Often, Insurance Co's keep a record of complaints about offices & particular MD's and they use that information to "fire" offices/practitioners that are causing the insurance co more trouble than they're worth. It's always worth it to let someone know about your bad experience.

Orrex

(63,084 posts)
13. Fantastic advice!
Wed Mar 12, 2014, 08:49 PM
Mar 2014

Your eye doctor sounds like my experience. You're not in central PA, by any chance?

 

SheilaT

(23,156 posts)
15. Thank you for sharing all this.
Thu Mar 13, 2014, 03:16 AM
Mar 2014

We all deserve to be treated like real human beings no matter what the circumstances.

It's also nice, in a bizarre sort of way, that you had crappy experiences in more than one area and so we can see what's involved.

One trivial thing I'll say is this: that the older you get, the less bullshit you are willing to put up with. You are, as you said, 38 and you already know a great deal about your body and your eyes.

I'm 65, and trust me, thirty or so years from now you really will not put up with bullshit like this.

Thanks again.

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