Center For Venous Disease

Review: My issue with The Center for Venus Disease in Glendale, has been going on for months now.

It was suggested that I bring this complaint to the medical board and file against the

specific doctor, so that is what I did. After months of waiting, initially because the medical board that I sent it to told me after two months that they were the wrong medical board (I never heard of such a thing) and two because of how long the process itself takes, I finally received a notice of dismissal from the board about my complaint without any reason or paperwork describing why.

My initial issue was the Center's shockingly poor business practice and so I am now returning back to my initial gut

response, despite the significant time waisted.

Below you will see a cut and paste of the complaint made to the medical board.

Your policy makes it clear that your focus is on the business and not the individual, sp please

pay no attention to the substandard medical services being referred to.

My request is that you look at the business practice and the breakdown in communication.

Currently, this medical practice has sent my balance due (which should be zero) to a collection agency.

For some reason, someone felt the need to tack on an additional $788.33 to the bill.

This is what gave me the strength to continue with this defense and no longer let this slide anymore.

I am not going to be a victim of the billing process and have my credit dinged any because of this ridiculous behavior.

I invite the owner and doctors to please go to Yelp if they care to see this on-going complaint being made public.

Their non-respopnsiveness to even call me to resolve this, speaks to their professional customer service.

Below is the communication I had with the doctors office:

Friday March 13th, 2015

Dr. [redacted] & Dr. [redacted] Center for Venous Disease - Glendale

Dr. [redacted],

A happy patient of yours referred me to you during the early part of 2014. I came to you for a consult and learned that four procedures would take 30 minutes each and would cost just under $10,000.00. At that time, you referred me to Dr. [redacted] because you didn’t take [redacted] Insurance. I was disappointed yet followed your advice.

In October, your office reached out to me and asked if I was still interested in coming in for the procedures. I told them that I would like to come in and asked if Dr. [redacted] could perform the same procedure that you were initially intending to perform. I was told that he could not.

I was also told by your staff that Dr. [redacted]’s procedure had an 80% success rate compared to your success rate of 100%. It was frustrating to learn that this was really an insurance issue. I feel that this lacks integrity and a commitment to excellence, considering the fact that your office has a procedure that is more technically advanced.

When you told me that the above information I was given was incorrect, I felt a professional cover-up had just occurred. If that was truly the case, then your staff doesn’t clearly understand the work that you do. Listening to how confident your employee was, made me think otherwise.

In my mind, it was now a risk for me to reduce my chances of success by 20% when in the same office a different procedure had a better result. I took you for your word and did as you suggested and made an appointment with Dr. [redacted]. I still chose to go thru with the procedure.

I was also told by several members of your team that it would be ‘life as usual’ after each of the procedures. Immediately after the first procedure, I then asked how long it would be before I could work out at the gym and get back to yoga. I was told that I couldn’t work out for 4-6 weeks. I was dumbfounded and my insides were twisted as a result of this information. This was a lie and very poor business practice to give that impression to any patient.

It wasn’t until after the final procedure that I was told that it would take six months to a year for the veins to fully close and that sometimes the procedure has to be done again.

I had to wait two weeks to get the procedures completed (because Dr. [redacted] went on vacation) which totaled almost 8 weeks of down time. I knew that somehow I needed to bite the bullet on this one because the ball was already in motion and I still had three procedures to go.

Not only was I lied to, my 7 day a week work out program came to a complete halt.

In a matter of six weeks, I gained a fair amount of weight and lost a good amount of muscle mass, which I had worked on for an entire year to build.

?I continued to pay my monthly yoga fee of $125.00 and my monthly membership at the Village Fitness Center is $160.00.

The Procedure:

?A procedure that was supposed to be painless wasn't successful to my satisfaction. During my third appointment, I experienced way too much pain and discomfort from being burned inside. I’m not sure if it was because Dr. [redacted] was having a lengthy and unrelated conversation during that procedure with the owner, who just happened to walk into the room unannounced, or if he wasn’t present to what he was doing. Mr. [redacted] was a bit too confident for my comfort zone and I hurt quite badly as a result! The pain lasted for days.

As of today, the veins that I had hoped to see gone for good, have returned except for the one on my front left leg. This is a huge disappointment for the down-time and money that I spent, not to mention how I babied them with wearing the uncomfortable stockings for so long.

I honestly was determined to be part of that 80% success rate and did everything I could with regards to my recovery and home care. I wore my compression hose for an extra week. I took excellent care of my legs after the procedures. I wore the uncomfortable support hose daily, and even wore them for an extra two weeks after the time that was recommended.

To have my veins appear again is an outrageous disappointment. On top of this, to be sent a bill for $43.02 is an absolute insult. I believe that $2,500.00 an hour is a pretty damn good salary for unsatisfactory work.

As a matter of fact, I am now asking you gentlemen to issue me a check for $425.00.

That will cover the 6 weeks of fees that I lost at yoga and the fitness center. It would be the right thing and the least that you could do, given what has transpired.

With all due respect, get that balance of $43.02 immediately zero’d out and do not expect it.

?I was planning on leaving this be and chalking it up to a bad experience. As a result of receiving a second payment notice, I will take further action if necessary. I expect a check in the mail for $425.00 within 14 days from the date of this letter, and then we can call it even.

I will never return to your office or ever recommend anyone to you.

I have been taken, lied to, and had my well-being put at stake.

Good Day Gentlemen,

_________________________________________________________

This is a portion of the Letter of complaint to the medical examiners

To whom it may concern,

After my consultation, the verbal agreement that was made, was for me to be responsible for an out of pocket fee of $1500 for 4 procedures that were totaling $9500 or roughly there about. I signed countless 'paperwork', which no one ever looks at, which their office claims obligated me for more fees. To date, after asking their office manager for it twice, I still have no copies of what I signed.

During my consultation, I was told that these 4 procedures were to be painless and that it would be 'life as usual" right after.

I was frankly lied to and deceived by more than on staff member who represents doctors and business.

1. Life was not as 'usual'

2. I learned after the last procedure that it can take up to a year for the veins to close.

3. I only agreed to $1500 out of pocket. (verbally)

4. One of the four procedures was quite painful.

The doctors office said that they would like me to return for an MRI so they can see what's going on.

That is not a possibility given my current relationship with these folks. The trust is gone!

Below is the communication I sent to them after I received a bill for another $1500.00, for a balance which I was unaware of. (when I wrote the letter, I hadn't a clue about the $1500 that was about to be billed or I would have addressed that as well in the letter) I would have Never had the procedures done had I known that it was to cost over $3000.00

With due respect, I have no intention of paying them another penny. As a matter of fact, I am asking for a refund.

Two reasons:

1. They told me something verbally and put something else in writing that I did in fact sign and never received a copy of. When I spoke to their office manager, she fully understood and told me that I still had signed the paperwork. I told her that it is quite unprofessional to alter the verbal agreement without a patients knowing when no one ever reads the 'fine print'. She said she couldn't speak for what went on behind closed doors.

2. I am currently still having issues with my legs and have soreness where I never had soreness before, until my groin was burned. This has been a most upsetting professional experience I've had.

With the exception of the front left leg, my veins are now visible again.

Before they would send my bill to collections, I thought it wise to reach out to the medical board for assistance.

Please see below the communication I sent them below. The office manager at the Center for Venus Disease knew that I was going to file a complaint. She told me that she was going on maternity leave and wouldl be back in several weeks, after which she would be sending the bill to collections.

________________________________________________________________________________...⇄ />
After I had my initial consultation at the center, I decided not to move forward with the procedure because my deductible was still high. When they contacted me in October, they had had cancellations and wanted to see if I was still interested.

At that point, my deductible was only $1500, so I said yes. During the consult, they reassured me that my deductible was all I had to pay in addition to two stockings.

Dr. [redacted] is not solely responsible because it was a clustering of communication breakdowns and lack of clarity.

The medical board told me that I could only file against a doctor and not a practice, so that is what I did.

As far as I'm concerned, the owner is the main responsible party.

Not one phone call from him or Dr. [redacted] to show integrity, gain trust and resolve this. He never even introduced himself when he walked in on my procedure, nor did he ever acknowledge that I was in the room. I personally don't care if you are the owner or not. I owned a business and would never walk in on a procedure unless I'm a part of it.

To make it worse, he came in and began having a conversation that had nothing to do with my case.

That put me on edge and shortly after, I got burned from Dr. [redacted]s hot wire which had gone all the way up my inner thigh and into my groin.

With all due respect, I've have doctors in my family back east. Never would such behavior occur.

To date, the last bill I was sent included the hidden balance in the paperwork, for $1460.39 plus a collections / penalty fee of $788.33, totaling $2248.72.Desired Settlement: I would like a refund of my initial $1500 because I plan to go elsewhere to have it redone.

I will never go to the Center for Venous Disease ever again.

I am asking that they stop the billing and collections process for a total that was NEVER discussed.

To sign a document right before walking in for the procedure and never receiving a copy was

less than professional. (I still hold no copy of what I had signed)

I would also like two months of fees for yoga and gym membership that I still had to pay and not use. (that totals $570.00)

Finally I would like to ask that they change key fundamental business practices, especially during the consultation process and be more

transparent and honest about what is to happen. Let the patient make their own decision.

If they do this, I will happily remove my review from YELP. If not, I will continue to use it like [redacted] and let the public

know how this continues to unfold. I have not updated it in a while and depending on how the outcome goes, I will either

continue or remove my review.

I promise not to stop as long as they continue.