I have been going to Dr Ching at Southwest Family Dentistry for the last 15 years.in the last 3-4 years I have had nothing but bad billing issues with them.
First, they would have you pay your co-pay and any outstanding balance before they work on the pre authorized claim. Then after a month later they would bill you again stating the insurance company didnt pay the full authorized amount. This made me furious, I called them on several occasions about their bad billing practice. At some points they even cleared the balance.
They did the same thing to my daughter, even though she is over 18, out of the house and on her own I still have her under my insurance plan because she doesnt make that much money and they did the same thing to her and was hit with a $950 bill. If she knew that it was going to be that high she wouldnt have had the work done. They told her that her services were pre authorized by the insurance company.
This last month me and my wife went in, she had her work done and her co-pay and balance after pre auth paid as well. I had a paid my co-pay and pre auth balance paid as well. When Dr Ching came in, I mentioned to him about the billing issues that I have been experiencing. He said that sometimes when they get pre authorizations that the insurance doesnt pay the full amount that they received. He then started to examine my tooth for a filling.
After viewing the x-rays he said that I needed a crown and shouldnt do the filling, he would then have to get a pre authorization on the crown. I then said ok, but then he said he wanted to drill it out to make sure Make sure, he all ready told me that I needed a crown. He then drilled it out and said yes you need a crown.
Ok, so in the middle of me being in the chair the assistant came in and had me sign that they needed to do a temp filling and that its going to cost me 80$ and that insurance was covering the rest, I then would have had a credit of 80$ towards my crown. Right then I was bummed as Dr Ching knew before he drilled out my tooth that I needed crown so he wanted to drill it out and make a few extra bucks until actually doing the crown.
I called them two weeks ago to ask for my credit balance, they said they would call me in two weeks since I am going to start using another dentist. I then called them again last week and Janet told me that they would have someone call me on Saturday to discuss the credit balance and not to come in because she can tell I was not happy. Saturday came and no call, she lied to me like the others that work there.
I received my bill last weekend, not only did the insurance not pay the full authorized amount that the Dr Chings assistant stated but I owed even more! I received a bill that had my daughters balance added as well when in fact she is not my dependent any longer. I called my insurance which in fact stated they did not receive any authorization for my temp filling so now I have to pay the full amount.
Southwest Family Dentist has been practicing this shady billing for the past 3-4 years with me. I did not receive any paperwork that I signed stating my billing. So the paper I sign is blank and they just put any amount after that as I dont see anything and am sure that is not right either.
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