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Williamsburg Emergency Physicians performs the billing for Emergency Room physicians at Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center. After an emergency hospitalization for 24 hours (following emergency room treatment), the aforementioned entity never even bothered to send a bill for the Emergency Room physician's charges.
Instead, in just over 40 days, Williamsburg Emergency Physicians sent the bill to a debt collection company in North Carolina. The original physician's bill was for one amount, but the bill received from the PMAB collection agency was $196.00 HIGHER than the original doctor's bill. NO explanation or legal justification was provided for this higher bill amount (30% in excess of the original charges).
Upon contacting Williamsburg Emergency Physicians, I was told that not only do they NOT have ANY kind of charity/discount assistance program, but unless a patient can make a minimum down payment of 25% of their bill AND pay at least $100.00 per month until the bill is resolved, they will NOT work out a payment plan with the patient...instead they stated to me and I quote verbatim, "The collection people will be more likely to work out a payment plan with you." They apparently could care less about the fact that 5 other medical bills were generated on that occasion. It would seem they are under the abhorrent impression that THEY are the only ones who provide medical services.
In addition, they offered NO explanation for their failure to even send a bill to me before just arbitrarily sending it to an out-of-state collection agency. Being a disabled, housebound, elderly patient subsisting upon a fixed disability income each month certainly doesn't help matters. Formal complaints have been filed by me with the Norfolk Better Business Bureau against them.
I would STRONGLY caution ANYONE needing emergent care in the Williamsburg Virginia area to be EXTREMELY WARY of Williamsburg Emergency Physicians. It is all too apparent their billing practices, or lack thereof, are unethical...and they certainly could care less if you are elderly, disabled, housebound, and subsisting upon a fixed income.
This is just a short follow-up note to my original complaint here regarding Williamsburg Emergency Physicians billing practices. With assistance from the Norfolk Virginia BBB, as of today (12/7/2012), my complaints have now been RESOLVED. The reply received by the BBB from the aforementioned business detailed more clearly what their billing policies are.
It seems the business did send a bill on 3 separate occasions to me, but for some reason, those bills never were delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. The billing office assumed that I was just ignoring the charges, and subsequently sent it to collection. ADDITIONAL COMMENT: It should be noted that for over a year now, there have been MAJOR problems with mail delivery & pickup in this area. I've experienced quite a number of occasions where important correspondence or medications mailed from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center 25 miles away from my residence, never arrived. In several of these instances, the Postal Service was never even able to locate this missing items.
Thank you all for your time and review of my update.
This is the only medical group I have encounters with that tries to bill my secondary insurance (Medicaid) before my primary (Anthem). As a result on two different ER encounters, I have received threatening letters from these doctors saying I owe thousands of dollars when they didn't even try billing my primary insurance.
What is more infuriating is that when you are in this ER you are seen by someone who gets all of your insurance information long before any doctor will ever see you. All they care about is getting your insurance information. I don't know how many times I gave it or signed things related to my insurance, and they still mess it up. Medicaid is NEVER primary if you have two insurance companies--it is always the payer of last resort, so of course Medicaid will reject this.
The doctors at the ER are too precious to receive phone calls about the mistakes they made with billing and the threatening, libelous letters they send out to disabled folks like myself. Instead they have some company out in Oklahoma doing their billing for them threatening people. We live in the richest country in the world and we have to do better for our people. I worry about people who are disabled who would receive these scary bills and not know what to do. You need an advocate fighting for you to get anywhere.
Shame on the ER doctors at Sentara Regional Medical Center Williamsburg. They made numerous mistakes in my care in the ER and later in my operation. In fact, the surgeon who did my appendectomy was fired from the practice.
I am very fortunate to have insurance (two insurances in fact), and yet the medical system even for someone like me in this country is not ideal. The doctors are crass and indifferent. They should at least be held responsible for sending out bills that make it seem as if I owe thousands of dollars when my insurance will in fact cover most of the costs, especially when there are people at Sentara dedicated to taking your insurance cards and dotting every i and crossing every t when it comes to your ability to pay when you are at the sickest point in your life. Heaven forbid a nurse or doctor should check on you--instead the ER is filled with money changers who apparently aren't even filing the insurances correctly.
Again, a simple way to remember: Medicaid is always secondary.