This wild ride of a story from reader “Kat” is a cautionary tale about greed and unethical behavior at a clinic.
From Kat:
This was before most allergy medications were over the counter. I had new insurance and used the provider look-up tool to try to find an in-network allergist. The insurance was very limited in who you could see with most being clinics or doctors somehow affiliated with the insurance company and the hospital network they owned.
The only allergist in network was a local ear nose and throat clinic. I thought it was odd they didn’t have their own allergy clinic but booked an appointment at this independent clinic solely because they were listed as my only in-network option. I made it clear when I booked the appointment this was for allergies and that they were my only in-network option to make sure they would be able to see The clinic was newer and in a more upscale part of the city. The appointment started off pretty normal, I checked in and went into an exam room with a nurse who asked me the standard questions.
Then it got weird.
She told me how they just got their own CT scan machine and they would love to have me help them test it out. I pointed out that the only reason I was there that day was that it was allergy season and the things that bloom in spring always set off my allergies. I just needed a script for something a bit better than Benadryl for a month or so until the pollen died down. She assured me that it wouldn’t cost me a thing, my insurance would cover it.
I knew this was a lie. The insurance I had at the time was horrible. It covered very little, throwing most of the cost on the patient. This insurance company also loved to deny claims to save money, forcing you to have them resubmitted multiple times or have a doctor file an appeal for routine things. This would probably end up costing me over a thousand dollars after my insurance rejected the claim. They probably would have been right too. Nobody needs a CT scan of their head for seasonal allergies.
Not only was this unnecessary, it is a pretty significant dose of radiation to your head. A CT scan is 70 times the radiation of an X-ray.
The nurse ran out of sales pitches and left. The doctor did a brief exam and mentioned their spiffy new CT machine. I declined again and reminded him I was there for seasonal allergies and just needed a script for something to get me through pollen season. He left the room. Then another nurse came back in and gave me the same sales pitch about their CT machine. It was starting to feel like an episode of The Twilight Zone. At no point had any of these people stated a medical necessity for me to get this CT scan. I again, told her I was here for allergy meds and that I was not going to submit to a CT scan. I told her if they were unwilling to do that I was leaving. I stood up and she blocked the door. I was beyond shocked. I told her that refusing to let me leave was kidnapping and I was going to call the police if she didn’t let me out of the exam room. That seemed to register in her head what she was doing. She insisted she wasn’t preventing me from leaving and that she would go get the script from the doctor.
She came back with the script, tossed it at me, and told me I was free to leave. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
I later called my insurance company to complain about what happened. This clinic was not owned by the hospital group but they were the only option listed on my insurance. The insurance company rep assured me they have other providers that could treat allergies and it must be a mistake in their system. I checked their provider look-up a few weeks later and they had fixed the issue, other clinics now showed up.
I wasn’t the only person with similar experiences at this clinic. A few years later I spoke to someone who was sent to this same clinic as part of the VA’s community care program. This person went for two appointments paid for by the VA. They were hounded for months to come back for additional appointments they didn’t need with varying excuses why they needed to supposedly come back for a temporary problem. They felt it was an attempt to milk the VA for more money, not any need to care for their problem. This same clinic has years of angry Google reviews. People complaining about being overcharged, pressured into extra services, and being treated rudely. There were months of these reviews then a spurt of glowing reviews that looked like they were written by a marketing department all posted in a short period of time. It appeared they were spamming their own reviews to improve their ranking and bury bad reviews.
