Double Charge For Doctor's Visit

[gelann]

I was just wondering if this has happened to anyone else. My daughter saw Dr. Grubb recently and we received the bill for the office visit and it was a double charge like we had two visits.

It was est level 5 visit and prolonged care visit. I called they did not have the notes from the visit but I was told that he can charge more for addtional care. The visit was about an hour. The first time we saw him, it was about an hour but we didnt get charged extra.

Last time we got an extra bill from the hospital. She was not sure if I would get one now because he was at the Perrysburg office.

Just wondering if anyone else has had this or should we call and question more?

Thanks, Gelann

[Ernie]

Hi,

I had a similar problem at the same place. I was first told it was 300$ and then I ended up paying 900$. My personal opinion is that because I pay out of pocket I have no insurance company to control the pricing. It happened again the following visit. The tripled the price after I had paid in full the visit. I don't know what is going there. I see him for less than one hour.

[Sunfish]

for better or worse, i can add a "me too". it really bothered me, as I feel that's it's dishonest to bill in this way without informing people ahead of time. i've been his patient foralmost 11 years & this only happened once. b/c i have decent insurance the "double billing" was an annoyance but not cost-prohibitive for me. as such, i made one phone call to make sure it wasn't an error (as i initially assumed it was) but as it fell in the middle of several hospital stays for me & my fight for SSDI approval i had more pressing billing, insurance, & paperwork issues & as such, chose to let it go. as much as i wanted to pursue it i've learned that i have to choose my battles at times or i, quite literally, would have no time or energy to do anything in my life that wasn't medical/ health related.

it honestly wouldn't surprise me if dr. grubb doesn't even know himself what's happening with the billing. we (my mom & i) were particularly bothered by the double billing as we had waited over 3 hours (during which i'd had to lay down on the floor as i couldn't sit up that long). and to be honest, while we had a decently long appointment (certainly longer than appts with many physicians), it wasn't ridiculously long. for what it's worth i've had longer appointments in the past, and as it was dr. g's last appt of the day a chunk of the time was more chit-chat than substance...not a complaint but something that should NOT permit double billing.

i hadn't even considered the affect this sort of thing would have on people paying out of pocket and it really really bothers me. most everyone there has waited a long time for an appointment and is not in good shape health-wise. many are in precarious financial situations. i have no problem with a sliding scale for billing based on how much time someone spends with a doctor but it should be made clear BEFORE the appointment and not as an after-the-fact discovery.

not sure what to tell you to do. as i already said i chose not to fight this one, though now that i'm thinking about its affect on others i'm sort of wishing i hadn't let it go. it's obviously something you'll have to make a decision about yourself, but no, you're definitely not the only one that's had it happen. ggggggrrrrrrrrrrr.

melissa

p.s. i've never gotten billed extra at all from the hospital other than if i've had bloodwork done and, as such, get billed from the lab. i've never had any other testing done in the office though; if your daughter had a tilt table test (or any other testing for that matter) that would definitely be a separate hospital charge but not sure what else would justify a separate charge.