First let me say Dr. Close is an absolutely amazing doctor. I loved her! My son & my daughter were both patients at her office. She's great with kids & parents. She treated me & my little ones with such patience & kindness. She actually performed a surgery on my son did an amazing job. She was so informative about everything & making sure I knew exactly what was happening to my son. I couldn't ask for more in my children's doctor. If I were rating her alone she would have 5 stars, but her staff is completely awful & my experience with them really impacted how I feel about this doctor's office.
At the appointment when my son's surgery was scheduled by a nurse I asked about the copay. I was told they could not even give me an estimate for the copay at that time. So I asked if the amount was higher than a couple hundred dollars would there be a payment plan option & I was told of course there would be. I called a couple times to see if they had figured out the copay amount, but I was told no every time.
A week before my son's surgery the office called me to remind me about his pre-op appointment & I asked about the copay. They told me it was around $900 & the entire amount was due the day before his surgery or it would be canceled. I asked about the payment plan & was told there was no be payment plan option for me.
So I asked the girl if it was their office's policy to give such short notice about a large copay needing to be paid before a non-optional surgery. She the acted very surprised & asked if this was the first time I had been told the copay amount? I told her yes & asked if again if that was their office's policy. She didn't respond so I said if that's not your office's policy & a mistake has been made I think you guys owe me some flexibility with the payment. She then said yea understand your point this is really strange, but then a woman in the background snapped at her & she said she needed to connect me to someone else.
The woman I was connected to immediately said we've followed office policy. It's our policy to inform patients about the copay a week before the surgery so the amount is accurate & won't change. She then said there would be no payment plan option & if I wasn't prepared enough to pay for my son's non-optional surgery she had no problem canceling it for it me.
She then went on to say that all the parents she has ever dealt with have educated themselves on their children's insurance & figure out the copays on their own & she found it shocking I hadn't taken the time to do that for my child.
I told her that I didn't appreciate the way she was talking to me & it was not helpful to the situation to imply I'm a bad parent. I do know my child's copays for a lot things, but expecting me to figure out the copay for a pretty uncommon surgery doesn't seem right. Also acting like a week notice to pay $900 is not even a little surprising isn't helpful either. Luckily I can afford to pay it, but it's shocking your office expects people to be able to do that b/ I'm sure lots of people wouldn't be able to & that's extremely unfair when you've been told the surgery isn't optional.
She condescendingly said I'm sorry if I've offended you. It's just been my experience that parents figure out the copay amount for surgeries themselves. Also most people have no problem paying their copays.
At my son's post op appointment I was told we owed nothing, but a few months later I got a bill for $200 & I found out that "accurate" copay was actually just an estimate.
Despite the office staff I would still recommend Dr. Close like I said before she is amazing just be prepared to deal with the office staff. Fingers crossed that your experience with them is better than mine.