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| - This rating is not based on the quality of the care we have received here...which I have been happy with. This is based purely on the billing department and their practices.
I recently had an experience with Scottsdale Medical Imaging I felt I needed to share. My daughter had some testing done in the fall and when we checked in, I provided our insurance information for billing. I was never asked if i would like to direct pay. After receiving the bill month later, I was told that if I had paid them directly, I could have saved over $250. When I requested to go ahead and pay them directly and have them reverse the charge to the insurance company, they denied my request.
I was told by the billing supervisor at SMI that it is not their responsibility to offer the option to pay them directly. It is my responsibility to inquire about the charges ahead of time. She even had the audacity to compare my daughter's medical necessary testing to purchasing a car. I promptly told her this was nothing like purchasing a car. First of all, I WANT a car but NEED medical testing done on my daughter. Secondly, I do not use my health insurance company to purchase a car but do so for medical needs. Last, it is my assumption that my insurance company is getting the best negotiated rates as they represent a huge volume of business and that their negotiation on my behalf is one of the benefits of having insurance. I find it interesting that they are willing to negotiate a higher price for insurance companies and offer better pricing directly to an individual. Who do they think ends up paying the higher price in the end?
According to my insurance company, upon my request, SMI CAN reverse the claim to the insurance company and allow me to directly pay which SMI said they were unwilling to do. I know they can do so because once I found out about this practice, I paid out of pocket for the next imaging we had done. STILL, SMI billed my insurance company. If I hadn't caught this error on their part, I would have paid for this TWICE. The supervisor told me since that was their mistake, they would reverse the charges to the insurance company but not if I requested it for the bill for my daughter's testing.
The insurance company said this happens all the time and is completely legal in the state of Arizona. They may tell the insurance company your bill is $1000 but be willing to take only $800 from the consumer because they will write off the additional $200 as a loss to the IRS.
I am appalled that SMI practices their billing in this manner and that our state legally allows them to do so. Not only did they not offer the better pricing to me in the beginning, once they told me that I could have paid less if I paid them directly, they did not allow me to do so. Needless to say, I won't make this mistake again.
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