ISSUE: Billing for services NOT rendered......then sending me to collections for it.
Here is my letter I wrote them dealing with the issue:
Date: July 12, 2021
To: Placer Dermatology Skin Care Center
9285 Sierra College Blvd
Roseville, CA 95661
I am in receipt of your 7/21/1 adjusted bill for $279.69.
It again seems excessive for a 30 minute initial evaluation and treatment (freezing off some superficial things) by your physician's assistant albeit with 3 punch biopsies.
I am glad after more than one year of letters and bills for $1454.25 for surgical procedures, you have ceased this attempt to get me to pay for services NOT rendered. You should have apologized for this "error" in billing a long, long time ago, and this would have been resolved. But instead, you sent me letters with medically related life threatening messages if I did not come in for the procedures that you billed for. You even sent an invoice (with my name and diagnosis) to my employment which were then opened by employees which resulted in a HIPPA violation. I have no record of letters or phone calls from you trying to understand the confusion, only bills to exact payment and scare letters to schedule for the procedures.
I have since been to another dermatologist and I have no medical issues and to date the 3 punch biopsy locations are benign and unremarkable. Yet, your office representative told me that I needed to come in after my initial evaluation for 3 "surgeries" and right away...........although she could not schedule me for weeks due to the surgeon's availability (which was outside of the recommended time frame for my diagnosis per her). Furthermore, the appts could not be on the same date which pushed the dates back even further. Not the same date, because of reported "medical precautions of the anesthesia". All the surgeries would be two dermal layers deep and involve two sets of sutures inside and out. Regarding the 1 punch biopsy on my center forehead, I was completely unaware of this lesion despite looking into a mirror every morning; I could not even see this lesion prior to my initial evaluation, so it had to be 1mm or even less. Hmmmm!
Your business has caused me considerable grief concerning the services rendered and NOT rendered.
Again, you should have apologized for billing "errors" and clearly after this amount of time, multiple people have been involved to catch involuntary errors, so I can only assume this is how you do business with a new patient.
I have been waiting for you to correct your bill or send me to collections. You have done the former so, I will agree to either of the two options below concerning my account with you---your choice.
Option 1: Adjust your bill again to zero, send me the statement, and I will call it even knowing that you incurred a minor and appropriate cost for how you dealt with me.
Option 2: Send me the bill again for $279.69, and I will pay it for your services rendered on 4/28/20.
Am I the first one who is having this experience with your business? Someone else will get to be the arbiter.
Whether you were right or wrong on these issues or just skirting the line, the break in basic trust has created this situation for me. Doing the ethical thing (accept some responsibility, apologize) and maybe a different approach to your business services might have saved us both a lot of grief.
SS
1/25/23 Addendum: On August of 2022, I received my first collection letter for $1390.61. No other contact attempt by them and notably no response to my 1/12/21 letter. The collection company they utilize is postmarked from a company in India. (???). I still have no issues / complication from their "diagnoses" as of this date (1/25/23). I am making good on my word to let people know how this company does business. read more