Health Care Providers, including Kelsey Seybold can do anything they like.
When I go to a store and see something I like, I can see a price. I can
then decide whether or not I can afford to buy it.
Not in health care and certainly not at Kelsey Seybold.
I
went to the Cypress Kelsey Seybold clinic in May
for a bad cough that was getting worse. The Doctor listened to it,
ordered a breathing treatment and then a chest x-ray and when that
proved to be OK, she ended up just prescribing an antibiotic to cover me
in case I was on
the precipice of Pneumonia. What she didn’t do, was tell me that now I
was going to owe them $170 and if I didn’t pay it, they were going to
turn me
over to collections and report it to the credit monsters.
I didn’t agree to “buy” their product. Yes, a product. That is
how they are looking at me… I’m a customer and they sell medicine. We should
learn to look at healthcare this way so we can make better decisions.
Stop drinking the cool aid that they all advertise. You know those ads
that pretend they CARE about us all so much? The ones that play the
cheesy music and show doctors smiling at us so sweetly. That’s all just a
big fat greasy lie. You find out about that lie the minute you speak to
the dreaded billing department. All smiles are gone, and NOW is when you
learn the truth about what medical care is really all about.
So, back to my ordeal with Kelsey Seybold. When I didn’t pay it right
away, they called and said, here is the amount you can pay us. I
suggested a different amount and they agreed to that. So, I go along
paying that amount for four months and then, I get a collection letter.
WHAT? Again, what they did not tell me was that no matter what I paid, if
it wasn’t the amount they deemed acceptable, they planned to turn it over to
collections anyway.
When I called to speak to Kelsey Seybold billing, they first tried to make
me feel guilty for not paying for something I bought, but I put an end to that
right away. No way am I going to allow them to make me feel guilty for
buying something that I did not have the opportunity to pass on. No one
said… oh, this x-ray will cost this $$ and the breathing treatment will cost
this$$. Do you want to proceed?
I asked why the Kelsey Seybold representative didn’t tell me that the amount
I told them I could afford to pay them every month, would not stop them from
turning my account over to collections. For four months, I continued to
pay them as I promised I would. At this point in the discussion, there
was some pause, because this supervisor knew right away this was wrong.
She KNOWS what she is doing is just wrong. She said to me, “If you
offered to pay on your bill, we are not going to turn that down.” I said,
“Oh so you decided to just grab whatever money you could! You felt no
need to tell me that no matter what I paid, if it wasn’t your suggested amount,
my account would still be turned over to collection? Don’t you think that
is something I should have been told?” She said, “For all we know they
did tell you that.” I said, “Does it note it there in your paper that the
person said that to me?” She replied, “No it doesn’t.” I said, “So
you are calling me a liar?” Silence on the line because that is exactly
what she said but she stops short of admitting that.
I finally said, “You are wrong. What you did to me was wrong and you
know it, but rather than fix it and do the right thing, which would be to call
back the collection and allow me to continue to pay you like you and I both
agreed to do, you would rather just tell me, “we are sorry, there is nothing we
can do now?" (btw, which I know is not true because I asked the collection
monsters this same question.) This is what you see as fair? Even worse,
you do this because you can, because you know I have no other recourse.
Who else can I speak with to insist I be treated fairly? Kelsey Seybold
has hired you to be a bully.”
What providers are doing to me and thousands of others is wrong and the
worst part is that they get away with it. Kelsey Seybold gets away with
it EVERY SINGLE DAY, while it runs sappy ads about how much Kelsey Seybold
cares about the community and its patients. Kelsey Seybold is a business and
their main object is NOT providing the best healthcare for the community but
about making LOTS of money. Whether the community can afford it or not is
NOT part of their “caring”.
Kelsey Seybold sends letters to their current patients turning 65 with
the direction that patients can either go into their Medicare Advantage plan or
find another doctor. Does this sound like someone that really cares about
ALL of the community or just the community that can pay them the most? As
far as Kelsey Seybold is concerned, those older patients that need regular
Medicare can just find someone else because those patients are NOT their target
customer. Notice the word customer because remember, to Kelsey Seybold,
you are a customer, not a patient.
What can be done when a patient is being taken advantage of and hit with
bills they had no idea about? Why are providers like Kelsey Seybold
allowed to perform services for which we have no idea of the cost and then just
decide what amount a patient can pay? Doctors, health facilities and
hospitals know that they can just sit tight and wallow in their greed because
we let them. Our legislators let them continue their greed because they
are scared of the powerful lobbies. I hear over and over again about
politicians giving me Medicare for All, Sort of Medicare for All, Leave it the
same Medical care…. Blah blah blah. I want to hear two things… WHO can
take on insurance and WHO can put an end to Healthcare providers blowing up
their costs and bullying patients who often too sick to deal with it. Give
patients somewhere to turn when they are being strong-armed to pay ridiculous
bills.
