Associates in Plastic Surgery

Review: Dear Sir or Madam, My family wanted to see a plastic surgeon, and was referred to Dr. Andrew M[redacted] Office (Associates in Plastic Surgery). Prior to the visit, we went online to evaluate the physician, and found an offer of "FREE consultation" (website accessed May 19, 2012). We carefully perused the offer, all the posted terms and conditions (which were few), and saw no exceptions to the service we were seeking. Thus, we called their office to schedule the free consultation. Unfortunately, during the encounter, Dr. M[redacted] came across as brusque, spending no more than 3-5 minutes in the room before leaving. We were disappointed with the encounter, and decided not to continue with Dr. M[redacted]. The office, perhaps fearing a loss of business, sent us a bill for $200 ($83.45 after insurance write-off), which we were shocked to receive since we expected the visit to be a free consultation as advertised and as scheduled. Thus, after the bill on 3/29/12, we have written two letters to Dr. M[redacted] (5/19/12 and 11/27/12) detailing our experience and asking for clarification, to which we received no written replies. The claim (now for $125.18) was further forwarded to a collection company [redacted], to which we further wrote two additional letters explaining the situation. We thought the problem was resolved when we heard nothing further from either company after our last letter (Dec. 2012). However, recently, we started receiving numerous phone calls and a letter dated 6/8/15 from [redacted]. attempting to collect the claim once again. We reached out to Dr. M[redacted]'s office, and the billing dept. claims that because we provided our insurance information for the free consultation, it is considered a "gross" transaction and thus is not considered free consultation, despite my explaining that we found the offer online and made an appointment specifically for the free consultation. I have records of all communication and website. Thank you very much for your time.Desired Settlement: I would appreciate the Associates of Plastic Surgery properly documenting our visit as a free consultation, thus removing the claim from [redacted]

I would further appreciate explicit clarifications on their website detailing which visits are considered "gross" and thus not considered part of the free consultation. Further, training should be implemented in the office to train staff such that they can inform patients that the free consultation does not apply and that they would be charged (not just by asking for an insurance card) before the visit as opposed to after the visit.