Carolina Conceptions, PA

I am being charged for something I was told was coveredWe were told the appointment was covered and that it was apart of the routine work up for being an egg donor. I made sure to ask and ask again if we would have any out of pocket costs for it. We were told no. The appointment involved a painful procedure of which they failed to tell me to prepare for. After leaving the exam room I ran down to the car to look for Ibuprofen while my husband checked out. When I came back he was arguing with the front desk receptionist. He was not happy to hear that we were expected to pay $950 for something we were told would be covered. The manager was sought for resolution and could not come hence, we were directed to a financial consultant. To make a very long story abbreviated, we were lied to. The financial consultant had no idea what was and was not covered with the donor cycle. Furthermore, she informed us we would have to pay MORE for the donor cycle than the regular cycle. We went with a donor cycle because we were told it would be more affordable. We would be required to drive to Raleigh to be monitored and pay well over an additional $1600 to do this. We were told we may or may not have the option to work around this, she just didn't know. When we probed further we were riddled with other costs that we were never informed of. This is the exact thing that happened in our last appointment with Carolina Conceptions. We were rushed, told the procedure would be THOUSANDS more than what we were told over the phone, and in the end we were given a choice to donate my eggs so that we could afford the procedure or to go somewhere else and repeat the whole process all over again. I felt like this was a repeated theme with this company and felt trapped. I was in pain and very emotional. I told the financial consultant that I didn't feel as if I could trust their company anymore. She was apologetic and looked as if she had no idea what to say because she knew that someone had messed up somewhere. She told me that I had to consider the "recipient of my eggs" and that she had already started the medications and process of preparing to receive my eggs. They had lied to me multiple times and my intuition was telling me that something wasn't right. However, they wanted me to continue on because someone else was now involved and I was expected to be selfless. We walked out of the office with me in tears. Hours later I was informed via an email that I was to be taken off of the donor list and that I would be expected to pay even more for [redacted] They keep sending me bills for that day and I keep telling them they told me it was covered. I never signed anything that stated we would be expected to pay this. And I was told multiple times that it would be covered. Now they are threatening to send me to collections. Hence, I am here as a last resort. Desired SettlementI just want them to take responsibility for the bill that they keep sending me. I was not told I would be responsible for this and do not feel like I should have to pay it. Business Response On the initial phone call from the patient, she was informed that we do not accept her insurance and that all of her visits would be self-pay. Initially the patient came to Carolina Conceptions in Dec 2013 and was told about our discount program for service workers. The price sheet that she was given on this day includes a breakdown of all additional services that she would be required to do and pay for out of pocket. She thought that the cost was too much for her to afford so we gave her another option (2 days later) when she emailed one of our physicians to tell him that the price was too high. The second option for her to do was a shared donor cycle, which the costs were again explained to her, and she thought that this option was more affordable for her. All of our price sheets include a breakdown of all of the charges that she would be responsible for since she is a self-pay patient. In February, 10 days before her education class and her "in office" procedure, this price sheet was emailed to her to explain all of the costs associated with this cycle and also it clearly tells her that her procedure would cost about $850, which is the outstanding charge in question. She owes Carolina Conceptions $946 which includes $846 for the procedure and an additional $100 for another procedure that she did on the same day (which she also knew about since it was outlined in the price sheet breakdown). We have clearly explained these charges to her and have it documented on more than one occasion that she would be responsible for the charges in question. We do not have any hidden fees and are up front with all of the costs so that patients are not caught off guard with the additional procedures that they will need for their cycle. To address the monitoring issue, we have it documented that we told her that she was not required to come to our clinic for her monitoring appointments since she lived quite a distance from our clinic. We explained that there are offices closer to her home that were qualified to do her monitoring and it was up to her to decide where she wanted to do her ultrasounds. We also explained that we did not know how much the other clinics would charge since we did not work at those clinics so we did not know their prices. We told her (already up front in the price sheet that she already had) that if she was to do her monitoring here if would be about $1600 so she could compare our prices to the other clinics. We are confused as to why she thought she would be paying thousands more than what she was initially told because we have always been up front with her about the costs associated with the cycle that she was doing. She may have thought that her medications were covered but we told her already that they would not be since her insurance does not cover anything that has to with her cycle at Carolina Conceptions. The outstanding balance that she has at Carolina Conceptions was clearly explained to her BEFORE her appointment and we have the documented emails to show this.