Parkway Sleep Health Centers

Parkway Sleep Center placed my account "on hold" for several months to rectify errors. Then they turned it over to collection agency with no notice.I always seemt to get a runaround when discussing costs about my CPAP machine and associated supplies. I also received thoroughly confusing bills and when calling to discuss them, never got sufficient explanations.That is, when I could actually talk to someone in the billing department -- they never answer their phones, you leave voicemail, and they don't call you back.The last straw was when they turned over my bill to a collection agency -- after admitting that it was THEIR FAULT that my billing was erroneous. The billing manager told me that they "pended" my charges for several months while they were trying to rectify problems with insurance claims that I alerted them to.Then after several months of getting no statements from them, all of a sudden I get a statement saying I owe a balance and 20 days later, they turn it over to a collections agency! They claimed to have called me, but I did not get calls from the billing department, only from the CPAP department asking if I needed supplies. Besides, when I do call them back, I get voicemail and they never return my calls.These people tried to overbill me, claimed they would fix the problem and then had the nerve to turn over the small remaining amount to a collection agency and mar my excellent credit score -- because of THEIR ERROR.The operations of Parkway Sleep Center are completely unacceptable. Desired SettlementBecause of their error, they turned my bill over to a collections agency, which has never happened to me in my life and which now could harm my excellent credit rating.The very least that Parkway Sleep Center could do is to void the charge, but they offered nothing. And now that it's already been turned over to a collections agency, they should refund the charge, at minimum.Business Response Parkway SleepHealth Centers makes every effort to ensure that our patients are satisfied with our services and that questions and calls are answered and returned promptly. We were not aware until yesterday that the patient had not received our voicemails regarding his account. In light of this information, we are sincerely sorry that this patient's account was turned over to collections as quickly as it was. We looked only at the fact that he had received at least one statement and at least one phone call, and turned the account over for further assistance getting in touch with the patient. This patient's credit is not negatively affected at this point. In this particular case, the billing claim the patient is speaking of requires "rentals" before the "purchase," per his particular insurance plan. Parkway did bill this correctly; the problem is that this billing process is complex and can lead patients to sometimes believe Parkway has made errors in billing, when in fact we are following the insurance company's billing protocol. Parkway does not and will not overbill patients. The billing employee who was originally looking into this account did put the account "on hold" to ensure no billing mistakes had been made (none had), but in the middle of all this, the employee was let go. This left the account up in the air for far too long, and for that we apologize and regret the error. As soon as we noticed the account, we immediately verified that the balance was correct, sent a statement, and made a phone call to the patient. We did not want to cause the patient and his family undue stress by being sent to collections and only did so when we believed we were not getting a response based on our normal protocol. While there were no errors in the actual billing process or the statement amount, we will write off the amount sent to collections because we did not take his particular situation into consideration. We did talk to this patient yesterday and believe we have rectified the situation internally. We thank the patient for his understanding. Final Consumer Response Since my initial complaint, I have spoken with the Operations Manager at Parkway Sleep Health and he has addressed every aspect of my complaint in a satisfactory manner. I agree with the preceding response from Parkway Sleep Health.Although the initial responses from Parkway Sleep Health were unsatisfactory, after the Operations Manager became engaged, he addressed my concerns in an exemplary manner and, assuming that the follow-up written confirmations are received, I am now quite satisfied with Parkway Sleep Health's attention to this matter and their rectifying the situation.