ComplaintsforBitesize Pediatric Dentistry LLC

• Initial Complaint

  07/26/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  The business charged me for service without waiting for insurance reimbursement. They also charged my credit card without authorization and then would not return my calls or messages inquiring about the charge.

  Business response

  07/30/2024

  We are a pediatric dental clinic. This account has been closed and settled. Not because *********************** was correct or justified but because we, the providers, took pity on her husband ****.

  The series of events are as follows:

  1. *********************** called for her son who was a new patient. She provided insurance to our clinic. She also was exceptionally difficult and requested that we break protocol and not preauthorize her son's treatment because "My dad's a dentist." Our office keeps records of all digital correspondence, and we have text threat messages from our insurance coordinator that state without knowing the treatment we cannot give accurate cost estimates as they were new patients, and they should be prepared to pay out of pocket.

  2. We saw her son and did treatment as she desired but she did not come to the appointment. Her husband **** did. They were happy with the treatment that was given. Because we were not able to preauthorize this treatment due to the patient being a new patient and not knowing treatment needs, we billed them what we estimated they would owe which was $275.63. At this time **** signed a financial agreement that any items not covered would be his responsibility and that we were allowed to keep and bill his card securely if we could not collect payment in any other way.

  3. We billed their primary insurance, and it paid only $31.00 on the account. This left a balance of $537.74 that we planned to send to their secondary insurance that was provided. That insurance does not send payment to our clinic. Instead, they send to the patient directly. Because of this our ******, who had dealt several times with ****, the mother of the patient, was not comfortable speaking with the mother anymore, requested that our office manager handle the delicate situation of explaining how the patient responsibility was theirs and that we would send to the insurance, but they would reimburse them instead of our clinic.

  4. ********** manager called to explain the above situation to ****. At this point the patient's mother began interrupting and belittling the office manager and said, "I can just send to the insurance company myself." To which the office manager agreed. "Yes, you can certainly do that, but we still have to collect the balance from you due to the payment process that the insurance uses." At this point she said, "I will just bill them and then pay your clinic." ********** manager responded, "While that would be nice, we have had issues in the past with parents sending to the insurance company and just keeping the reimbursement. Because of that we have to bill this way because we have been left with balances on the account several other times." ****************** then because saying, "Well that's ridiculous" and "Why didn't your office tell me it would cost this much?" To which the office manager replied, "Ma'am I see multiple notes in the account about how our insurance coordinator advised you that we should pre-authorize this treatment, but you did not want your son to miss two days of camp. That is the reason we did not know the bill totals." At that point she hung up on the office manager. 

  5. We reached out to the patient's secondary insurance that they provided to see if we could get a waiver and have them send us the check for this one time. They advised that sometimes that is possible but in this case the patient was not an active member in their system. So, all of it was a moot point. They did not have secondary insurance. 

  6. At this point the office manager reached out to the mother again. She did not answer his call. He left a voicemail saying that her insurance was not active and that the full balance was due. 

  7. Our normal financial policy is to send bills out to patients and allow them to pay. Because ******************* berated our team and point blank said she was not going to pay and then did not answer our phone call after also hanging up on the manager, we instituted the policy to the letter, which states in the section "balances due": "If there is an outstanding balance Bitesize will alert the patient's guardian in multiple mediums including, text and email. By signing below, you also authorize Bitesize to keep card information securely on file. If attempts to collect the remaining balance are not successful, you also AUTHORIZE Bitesize to BILL THE PAYMENT METHOD THAT IS ON FILE. If that is unsuccessful Bitesize will attempt to initiate a final contact with the patient's guardian before adding a $50 collection fee and submitting the account for collections to the third-party collection's agency. By signing below, I authorize
  Bitesize to collect all remaining balances due as mentioned here." This was signed by ****, the father of the patient and spouse of the complainant *******************.

  8. We then put all of this information in an email to the family outlining policy as well as why there was a bill. ******************* then called and left a voicemail on our system stating that she did have secondary insurance and that she talked to them recently.

  9. The complaint is that we did not bill her insurance which we did. And that we did not have authorization to bill her card. Which we did. ******************* was by all accounts one of the rudest patients any of our staff have delt with. She did not listen and demanded treatment on her own terms. She gave incorrect information and called us liars when we tried to explain that to her. 

  10. The following day after seeing both 1 star ****** and yelp reviews from *******************, her husband **** called and wished to speak to me, the owner of the clinic. I was very busy but was able to carve out some time to speak with him. He was incredibly reasonable and explained that indeed our clinic was right and that they did not have secondary insurance. He also acknowledged that they did owe the money we charged their card for and that he had authorized it on our paperwork. He asked for ***** and for a discounted price due to hardship. I was inclined to help him with this because of his good nature and candor. But, due to the already bad reviews I asked that he have his wife take them down as, by now we can all agree, were incorrect and borderline slander. He commented that "her actions were not my actions." To which I agreed. But the fact remained that the reviews were untrue and a form of retribution rather than correct information. This was Friday. A few hours after this report was made about our office. Clearly ******************* was on a digital mission to financially hurt our office in any way she could. A few hours later her reviews had been removed from both ****** and yelp. 

  11. That following Monday I asked our office manager to significantly decrease the cost for them. Before the office manager could call, the father, **** called, and the office manager advised that we would be discounting $546.04 of the original $813.37 charge. **** was grateful and gracious in this, and we considered the matter closed.

  12. Today I am writing a message to the better business bureau. Defending myself again, from the same inaccurate and false claims. Because of this I have also reached out to **** again to advise him that his wife has made a BBB claim against my practice.  

  In summary, we advised the parent that it was good practice to pre-authorize treatment and she declined. We billed the insurance in full as well as dealt with rude and disrespectful behavior. She claimed to have secondary insurance, which she did not. We billed their card when she told our office manager she would not pay, and she hung up on him. We were authorized to do this in writing as part of our financial policies that are attached. After all those facts were lied about on reviews sites, we gave over 50% discount to the family out of good will, due to her husband's plea of hardship.

  Kind Regards,

  *****************************

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩