Business ProfileforCopperstate OB/Gyn Associates, LTD

On 8/16/21 I went to Copperstate for an annual Well Woman exam. This exam is 100% covered under federal law. My insurance company paid them $190 for the visit. However, Dr. Farias arbitrarily classed the visit as a specialist visit and charged me an additional $150, which my insurance did not cover and allowed $107.82 to be charged. I disputed the charge immediately and was told that it became a specialist visit when I answered "yes" to one of the doctor's questions. (Did I have pain on intercourse), and the doctor advised me (unsolicited from me) that I could use olive oil as a lubricant for sex. I did not ask for or want any services beyond the preventive exam and at no time was I told that answering the doctor's questions might trigger a "specialist visit." I think most reasonable people would assume that answering a doctor's questions is part of the exam. Furthermore, the advice given was not specialist-level advice: it is common knowledge that you can use oil as a lubricant for sex, as long as you are not using condoms. No one needs to go to med school to learn that. Furthermore, Dr. Farias gave me wrong and dangerous advice (also unsolicited) that because I had not had a period for 9 months, I could have sex without birth control. Had I followed her advice, I could have had an unwanted pregnancy, because I began menstruating again. According to the Mayo Clinic, menopause is "diagnosed after you've gone 12 months without a menstrual period." Copperstate refused to waive the charge or negotiate with me, so in Jan. '22 I filed a complaint with the US Dept of HHS and forwarded the complaint to Copperstate. After that, I never received any more bills from Copperstate, so I assumed they had waived the charge. Now, 18 months after they stopped billing me, I am being dunned by a collection agency. Had I known the charge had not been waived, I would have filed this complaint sooner.