My experiences thus far with Dr. Kass have been pleasant. He is a soft-spoken man who seems…read moreknowledgeable in his field. He's been helping with some foot problems, and we are making progress. We are using a combination of laser treatment, creams, and medication to address some skin problems I've been having for years. I never thought much of it, so I just ignored it. But we are working on that now.
His office is a typical doctor's office, though he has one room that looks like a hoarder's room and is a disaster. Still, I don't let that influence my opinion of him as a physician.
His front desk staff is a solo, older lady. She appears nice and has always been okay to deal with. At times, I have observed her frazzled and stressed out while trying to get things done. She appears to get overwhelmed at times, and I feel for her. They did forget to set me up with a call that I required once, but other than that, they've honored all their commitments to me.
They have some invisible person who handles their billing and financial stuff, and I'm not a fan of this person. I went for another treatment, and while Dr. Kass hid in the back, the nice older lady told me that he wouldn't see me unless I paid the balance that my insurance hadn't yet covered.
I explained to her several times that there was an issue with my insurance after changing jobs, but that it was addressed just yesterday and they would be submitting payment not only to them but to every doctor I have seen. The balance was $90, not a ridiculous amount that could make or break either of us.
Since I just took care of that yesterday and Aetna assured me all those accounts were going to be paid, I refused to pay because I knew I'd have to go through hell to get that money back. I asked to speak to the billing coordinator to clarify anything unclear. I noticed she was getting frazzled and said, "That's not going to happen." Dr. Kass was hiding in the back, but I knew he was listening; it was pretty funny to me.
In any case, I'm not in the business of stressing out or terrorizing older, defenseless ladies, so I told her, "I'm just going to go ahead and leave. At some point soon, you folks will get payment or contact from Aetna, and perhaps at a future date, we can reconvene. But I am not paying money that I know for certain you have coming your way. Also, I know it's not you, and you said that I can't talk to the billing person, so there's no point in dragging this out any further. All I have lost is the time that I spent commuting here, and I'll just take the L on that."
Again, I know Kass was listening from the back, and he didn't say anything. Frankly, because of this experience, I've lost respect for the practice, and I'm not sure I'll return. Relationships matter, and he should have respected me enough to come and talk to me instead of hiding. That is soft behavior and I'll probably just find another doctor in the general vicinity and try them out. My issue is almost resolved anyway. I like the guy, truth be told, but frankly, this was kind of messed up in my opinion.
So, to be fair, the doctor is good insofar as my present experience. His admin is a nice lady, but she is easily frazzled and can't deal with any outside-the-box situations like mine. I opted to leave as opposed to stressing her out. I would have expected the contact info for the billing person or Dr. Kass to at least hear me out. Neither of these happened, that was disappointing. Finally, and of course, the billing person can kiss my backside on this one.
