Gundersen Lutheran, Inc.

Review: Gundersen has repeatedly sent bills to collections prior to insurance payments and billing to myself (patient) I have received three different bills in three consecutive months with very VERY different amounts they go up and down by the hundreds; once by the thousands. There explanation is insurance payments made and not made. when asked how am I to know what to pay they said pay it all every time you receive a bill. Really pay $4000 when after insurance its $45 out of pocket. The collections office sends me to Gundersen to get explanations and to figure this out. Gundersen tells me its in collection can't help me.

I consider this type of billing to be double to tripple dipping. Bill me before insurance, bill insurance, bill me, then at same time turn it all over to collections where I get billed again.

I have documentation of this billing practice.

2)Gundersen also is in the practice of sending out a bill over a year after service is rendered. If I use the facility and charges occur say 3-3-14 then the charges should be entered on 3-3-14 not months to a YEAR LATER. insurance companies have rules about paying if not submitted in a timely manner.

Gundersen expects payment within a mounth of sending a bill why can I not expect a bill sent to insurance then me in a timely manner say 3 months (they are busy)

Guarantor number [redacted]Desired Settlement: I would like all bills pulled back from collection and made into one complete bill AFTER INSURANCE PAYMENTS for services rendered to date. AND MY CREDIT SCORE ADJUSTED accordingly.

I feel a correct bill sent for payment is not to much to ask for. As well as fixing my credit score accordingly.

Business

Response:

March 5, 2014

Review: I have tried over 10 times to contact this business over a billing issue via telephone and email over the past three months with no response. I believe I have been billed twice for one service, and no one will return my call or email. Now they have sent me a letter saying they will send me to collections, but they fail to respond when I try to resolve the issue.Desired Settlement: Someone needs to call me and resolve the issue and talk to me about a billing adjustment.

Business

Response:

This issue has been resolved.

Gundersen has some great doctors, etc. but their billing practices are horrible. Even though their system tells you to ask if financial help is available, it never is especially if it is for dental work. Then when you can't meet their payment plan fees, even though you have made a substantial payment every month they turn you over to a collection agency to screw up your credit rating. When you try to talk to them they say you have to meet their payment plan amount or they can't do anything about it. WHAT A CROCK! They only care about their money and not their patients!!!!!!

Review: [redacted] was in an ATV accident [redacted]. He has had multiple health issues since the accident including; detachment of retina, transverse process fracture of L2 and L3 vertebrae, traumatic brain injury, and is suffering from other multiple issues. We have contacted the billing department at Gundersen many times because his [redacted] from the ATV has paid out all they can pay and he was told by [redacted] that money should be used toward his deductables and they have sent a cap letter to his health insurance (Gundersen Health Plan) He is being threatened to be turned into collections because they are stating he is responsible for the bills which is close to $60,000 now. They have not sent any letters regarding this or called him to his knowledge regarding this. I was just made aware of this when I called their billing department again today 4/18/2014. His insurance is still refusing to pay for anything and we cannot get any answers from Gundersen or their health plan as to why. They are giving us a complete run around - we call saying American Family has paid all they can pay and tell them everything from billing at Gundersen needs to be reprocessed through his insurance company back to the date of injury on 7/31/2013 and they are being negligent and saying they have not received cap letter from [redacted]. We have called [redacted] also and they say they have sent multiple letters regarding this issue so Gundersen Health Plan IS in fact ignoring his case. He pays for insurance and will not pay the Gundersen Billing Department money our of pocket for medical expenses, even if we could afford to do so. We are becomming frustrated and do not know where to turn regarding this issue. They have offered payment plan in 6 payments - in which is unacceptable because he has health insurance that he has paid for that needs to pay for his healthcare needs. We are just trying to find someone who can be of assistance as we cannot afford a lawyer especially now.Desired Settlement: We just want to know how to handle [redacted]'s medical bills, Gundersen has been unhelpful and just says his insurance is not paying and he is liable but cannot afford his bills. We want help figuring out what he is suppose to do when his insurance is denying everything and we have told that to them multiple times and have also asked multiple times for them to only send his bills to Gundersen Health Plan but they keep sending bills to [redacted] - we are still getting denials from both places and getting the run around from Gundersen billing department, and from Gundersen Health Plan. [redacted] wants to be treated like a patient of Gundersen Health System and wants to feel like he is receiving healthcare from a healthcare facility who actually cares about their patients and not just the money.

Business

Response:

I have forwarded this to the Gundersen Health Plan to contact the patient directly.

Review: We have had Gundersen Lutheran (GL) Health Insurance for several years now, through a variety of employers. We have been paying our bills via auto-pay for several years as well. We were pregnant/had a child in 2011/2012. GL had spoken with us back in 2011 regarding a payment plan, and we were told we could do $100 a month. We had auto-pay set up through GL to make payments on the 22nd of each month. Everything had been fine with that up until June 2013, when GL turned off our auto-pay without our consent, and without notice, sent our entire $3k bill to collections. This is unacceptable, and despite many phone calls, we've gotten no where.

To give a little more background on the situation, in late April 2013, I received a phone call from GL, asking us to up our monthly payment amounts to $150, since our bill was now over $3000. I inquired as to why, since we had just received a statement in the mail, indicating our bill was almost under $1000. The person I spoke with said that it was a doctor's visit from May 2012 (almost a full year prior) that had just been applied to our bill, raising it by over $1500. Of course I was not willing to just accept that, and asked them to look into that before I raise my payment amount. I was given the runaround with that, and GL took a full weekend to investigate why that one doctor's visit took a full year to process, and why it raised our bill more than $1500. (It was concluded that it was because that dr's visit was the ONLY thing on that certain health insurance policy, so we were being held responsible for the entire deductible. And then we also were uninsured from Aug 1-Oct 1, when we thought we did have coverage from our new employer.) After they explained the raise in the bill, I never again was asked to raise the amount of our monthly payments, so we continued on with the $100/month. Since it was not brought up again, I assumed they had waived the need to up our payments, based on the confusion with the billing that took a year to process.

So in May, I received a confirmation email from GL on the 17th, that our auto-pay was set to be deducted from our checking account on May 22. On May 22, the auto payment was paid to GL in the amount of $100. In June, I received another confirmation email from GL on the 17th, that our auto-pay was set to be deducted from our checking account on June 22. However, that auto payment that was scheduled and confirmed BY Gundersen Lutheran, never came out of our account on the 22nd. I was told later, once our account was in collections, that they had turned off our auto pay on June 18th, exactly one day after I received the confirmation email that it was all set. That was done without my consent, but they are claiming that since we were not "compliant" with their policies for payment plans, they reserve the right to just turn it off, creating a late bill, so they could send the entire account into collections.

We have called GL many times trying to sort this out. Their only response is that they attempted to contact us about our account being non compliant before sending it to collections. When asked WHEN they notified us of this, they state July 12th. However, our account was past due starting in JUNE due to their horribly policy of turning off our auto-pay with no notice, AFTER we received confirmation that it was scheduled for the month. Plus, the voicemail I received from them on July 12th, which I still have, that states NOTHING regarding our account, our auto pay, or our financing being non compliant. For all I knew, it was an appointment reminder or a survey call. After we got notice from the Collections Agency, I left Tina (supervisor) a message requesting a call back, since I got no where with her staff. But of course she never returned my call. We are simply requesting that they pull our account out of collections prior to Sept 1, when it will officially affect our credit score. We will gladly raise our monthly payments to GL as necessary.Desired Settlement: We are simply requesting that they pull our account out of collections prior to Sept 1, when it will officially affect our credit score. We will gladly raise our monthly payments to GL as necessary.

Business

Response:

ID #[redacted]

I went into the clinic in la crescent, mn 2 weeks ago due to a UTI, I was prescribed an antibiotic that didn't work, and called back today because I still have my UTI. I was told that they were not willing to refill the prescription and call my family doctor. when I did so, I was told that I needed to leave my job and go to urgent care immediately as they thought I had a kidney infection, and they refused to set me up with an appointment at a time that I didn't work (the following day). When I went into urgent care, I was seen by a doctor who told me that the reason I have had over 50 UTI's in my life is "solely because I'm a woman, that's what the real problem is", and when I explained that my family doctor wants me referred to a specialist so I don't need to keep coming in and getting antibiotics, his response was "well, that's certainly not a DUMB idea", then reluctantly referred me to a specialist, and then they tried to charge me at the time of the visit and nearly refused to send me a bill in the mail. I was also told by the nurse urging me to go into urgent care that I shouldn't go to the express care clinic literally in the same building that I work in. So not only was I inconvenienced by having to go in and be told that diagnosis are not based off of logic and medical school training, but I was also adviced that at least my doctor wasn't dumb. I could have gotten a better diagnosis from a plant.

My husband and I had the worst experience ever with Gundersen. In 2012 upon a checkup I told my gyno that I went off of birth control and my hormones were all over the place and I wanted to regulate them so I could make sure I could conceive at some point. They gave me two options, either go back on birth control to regulate my periods or speed up the process and take clomid, a drug that stimulates ovulation. I went with Clomid because that would push my brain to send the right signals to my ovaries again. The worse thing actually happened when my dr. recommended that I see a nurse. I did everything they asked me to, I took the Clomid, and I took the ovulating test as they requested. When I got the positive ovulation result, I contacted my nurse to schedule the progesterone test that was supposed to happen 10 days after I ovulated. I shared some of my questions with my nurse asking her why my test was giving my a close to ovulate result for 10 days before ovulation actually took place, and she told me that I did everything wrong and I should have stopped taking the test as soon as soon as I got the "about to ovulate result". I told her that that was not what the exam says. I then explained how the Clearblue Advanced Digital exam works and she totally dismissed me treating me as if I were an it who could not understand her.

When I got the results back, the results were so low that they sent me to see a fertility specialist. Upon seeing the specialist I told her everything and she said "Yeah. the exam was done to early for an accurate result.". A few weeks later I received the bills for both the consultation and the progesterone exam. I was shocked that they billed me for something they did wrong and thus started going through customer service and insurance, and billing departments to see what was going on. They informed that until I have a diagnosis of infertility I would not be billed, thus I trusted them. After months dealing with getting different information from different people every time I called to deal with this issue, I got a letter saying that they based their recommendation for the exam based only on the LH testing. What annoys me and offends me the most is that they took this long to give me some information and yet they say they based their recommendation on a "wrong information" when it is not my fault that they did that, because I told the nurse, I explained everything to her. So the nurse ignores me and dismisses everything I tell her, I do a time-sensitive exam in the wrong time (not giving me an accurate result), and they send me a bill for it and send me to see a dr unnecessarily. In the end they made me spend money I didn't have when they already make a fortune off of us. This is unethical and disrespectful at so many levels.

I am highly offended with Gundersen and I am super frustrated that they dismissed all my complaints, and that they took advantage of us. They didn't do a time-sensitive exam in the right way, yet they made me pay for it giving me horrible excuses.

Review: I was seen in urgent care by a younger health care worker, who may have been a doctor in training. He was excited and told me he thought I had [redacted], which is EXTREMELY rare in my location. A more experienced doctor then came in the room and told me that the previous doctor was mistaken and that I most likely had Lymes disease. The older Doctor told me that antibiotics wold be prescribed which would take care of either tick borne illness. I was under duress having suffered from a high fever and dehydration for several days. They told me they would take blood, and proceeded to run 10 different lab test without informing me or my wife of the costs and whether or not the tests were even necessary. I received a bill of $707.54 for tests and services that were unnecessary, unaffordable, and not covered under my insurance plan. I do not have a problem with letting them do extra tests to contribute to their scientific understanding of tick borne illnesses, just don't charge me for extra tests that I didn't need to take care of my problem. I was further charged for a useless follow up visit in which the doctor told me that there is a lot that they don't understand about tick borne illnesses. Upon questioning she said that I might not have lasting symptoms, or I might, she really didn't know. (all of that is fine, just don't charge me hundreds of dollars for a 10 minute Q and A that doesn't tell me anything.)

Icing on the cake was they charged me $5.25 for one dose of antibiotic. That same antibiotic only cost me $0.50 a pill at the pharmacy 20 minutes after the visit. They did not tell me I would be charged so much for one pill or tell me that I had the option to wait 20 min. to pay a reasonable price. (I had already had the tick bite for about 2 weeks, so what's another 20 min?)

Contacted customer service and they told me that they could not comment on what would be fair in this situation. They said they would submit a review and send me additional paper work. In the meantime I have to wonder if I can make house payments this summer. How do I explain this to my wife and kids?Desired Settlement: I told the rep that I would be not only willing, but happy, to pay a more reasonable amount in the 2-300 dollar range. I do not want "financial help" or assistance. I just want a fair and reasonable price for a hard working American that takes pride in being accountable, responsible, and treating other fairly.

Business

Response:

We do not have a signed authorization at this time and would not be able todiscuss #[redacted] accounts with you due to HIPAA regulations that wemust follow . We have done a complete review of the account (s) and haveresponded to the patient rega rding the concerns outlined in the complaintthat was submitted to you on 6/29/ 15.