Healthcare Data Systems, Inc.

I am a small medical business owner, practicing in a small town. I was recommended to use HCDS by another practitioner, who has been very happy with their services. I, on the other hand, had nothing but problems with this service. First of all, in the 1 year that I was with this out-sourced billing company, I had 3 different people in charge of my account. The first person lasted 6 months and had agreed to change my service location address and keep me updated on any changes with the insurance company that I was contracted with. She did neither. I am now in the process of changing my addresses....1 year after I moved....I have apparently been practicing at my old location for the last year, but I just didn't know it. Then, that billing lady took a "leave of absence" which she never returned from. I had a new billing person for about 4 days, who also took a "leave of absence" and now my new billing person, I've had for the last 6 months. HCDS has consistently over-billed my patients, billed insurance companies for codes that I didn't authorize, bill my patients, who had already paid cash for their services. I've had at least 100 patients call me, that had received bills for services that they had either already paid for or for services which I hadn't done and HCDS just decided to bill out without my knowledge. I ended my contract with HCDS in December, yet according to contract, they continue to collect monies until January. In January, I discovered that they hadn't billed out any of my auto accident claims or work comp claims, which had occurred during the billing period. I called and asked them to rebill these services, to which they refused because "it was past the contracted time". I threatened with my lawyer, as the services were rendered within the timeframe that I had paid them to do the billing, and immediately, they then billed out the services. I have also requested several times, information on insurance of patients of mine, which they refuse to release to me. They are a contracted billing company, utilizing my company data. Refusal to provide me with my own data is, in fact, illegal. I am in the middle of discussing with my lawyer what further actions that I can take to resolve these issues. I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND THIS COMPANY. They have been terrible to work with and are poor at communication and collection and do NOT hold up their end of a contract. Furthermore, I increased my business by over 400 patient visits this year; yet I collected $3000 less than the previous year. Obviously a problem with collections.