Harcourt Chiropractic Office, LLC

Revdex.com: I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted] , and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me Regards, [redacted]

September 19, 2017To Whom it May Concern:This letter is in response to a correspondence received dated 09/14/2017 stating concerns from a patient regarding how her charges were handled at our office in 2016. Apparently, the complaint involved guarantee or warranty issues as described in your letter....

I am attaching references for your review and have numbered them for easy identification. The first reference is page 1 which was a plan we reviewed with the claimant specifically stating that no guarantee nor assurance has been made concerning the results of the procedures. Therefore, I find it interesting that this complaint was issued due to warranty or guarantee issues. On Pages 2-6, as I have numbered at the top, are typical case recommendations for similar presentations based on a patient's specific functional assessment, which we performed on this patient. Page 4 outlines the schedule of care based on the severity of the patient's case, ranging from mild to very severe. This particular patient had a moderate intensity presentation and protocols which we have developed to help patients achieve not only pain relief, but also optimal function over a period of time, are reviewed with the patient. Actually, we offer two levels of care. If you will refer to page 1 again, the 1st level is for pain relief and the 2nd level is for rehabilitation, which aims to actually correct the problem. I did review this entire report with the claimant and is her choice as to what level care she wants.Moving on to the patient's statement of the problem, she indicated that she asked about insurance participation and we told her that we do not participate with her insurance. As a provider of healthcare, it is unlawful to have a dual fee System. Therefore, we have an option that allows patients to join a discount program that we participate with, [redacted], which allows us to legally reduce our fee of $50 to $39 per chiropractic adjustment. The patient's initial visit includes a consultation, history, examination and treatment, therefore, not just a chiropractic adjustment. The $95 charge is our standard fee for the initial visit. She did pay the $95 that same day by credit card, according to our ledger and records. Our protocol is to take the history and physical examination findings and review them with the patient on her second visit, which we did do with this patient. Then, we put together a care plan and review it with the patient on their 3rd visit, giving them the option of either joining our discount medical plan, [redacted], or paying our normal customary fees. Page 8 is the [redacted] application signed by the patient, with identifying information blacked out to protect this patient's identity. You will see under payment information that she indicated a YES! I want [redacted] for discounted chiropractic care for $49 for a one year membership. We provide this discount program as an option to help reduce costs for ongoing care. Her next statement indicated that she came in for 2 treatments at $39 each and paid for both. If you will review the patient ledger (page 7) for ID [redacted], you will see the charges and payments that were made. We did charge the reduced fee of $39 for the chiropractic manipulation, but no payment was made. The electric stimulation that was provided on 03/10/16 was reduced from $32 to $19 under the discount program. She indicated that she has an electrical device at home. Yet, in 33 years of practice, I have never had any other patient have the same type of therapy units that we use clically. Typically, patients have a TENS units which help decrease pain, yet has no real therapeutic value. The HVG unit in my practice, in fact, does have therapeutic value. Although they may seem the same, they have totally different effects. Additionally, the patient was never told that electric stimulation treatment was included in the $39 for the adjustment. From the ledger, I have our normal fees of $50 minus the $39 which is a difference of $11. In 2 visits, she saved $22 being enrolled in the discount program for her adjustments. The electric stimulation is normally $32 and with $19 being the discount, she saved $13 on that service. In 2 visits, she saved $35 after signing up for the discount program that cost her $49 with [redacted]. Typically, any patient that is on this discount program, if they come in 3-5 times/year, they save their $49 fee and benefit from continued savings for their care.The claimant then discusses our program plan at $1700. We outline what the program will cost the patient if they were to go through the entire rehabilitative program. If the patient chooses not to go through with the program (which she chose not to do), we only charge for the services that we rendered (which is what we did). On her ledger, you can see that at no time did we charge her $1700. One of my chiropractic assistants did communicate with ID [redacted] on 03/22/16 (page 9) and in the comments our assistant wrote, ID [redacted] indicated that she was going to try physical therapy because it has worked for her before and ID [redacted] said she is happy with us and she will call if she wants to come back.Page 10 shows the notes from our billing department regarding ID # [redacted]'s balance at our office. This patient said she had already paid for two adjustments at $39 each and stated that she would check her bank Statements and would contact us after reviewing them. Yet, the patient never contacted the office and disregarded all attempts of communication made by my assistants. We make a good faith effort to work with our patients to avoid collections. We did not opt to turn her balance over to collections until 7 months after the services were provided.In an effort to resolve this complaint, I am willing to forgive the $58.20 collection fee and $19 electric stimulation charge, even though we did provide the service to her. She did receive the spinal adjustments and didn't pay for them. What's right about that?? She needs to pay the $78 for the two spinal adjustments. We keep very good records. When we receive payment we will ask the collections company to remove any reference to this issue from her credit report. I wouldn't ask a person to come cut down my tree and then say, well, I just want to pay 1/2 of what I owe you otherwiseI'm complaining to the Revdex.com.Sincerely,Gary H. DC

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
Regards,
[redacted]