Rocky Mountain Foot & Ankle

Mrs***, First off, I would like to apologize that you had such a bad experience at Rocky Mountain Foot & Ankle, I assure you that is not what we hope for with any of our patients! I did some research and took some time to speak with some of my employees who might have had
contact with you to see if we could get to the bottom of some of these issues, and thought that a list would be the best way to construct a response to your concerns - We try to first exhaust all conservative treatments before ever recommending surgery as the treatment plan for any patient- We did have quite a few new people training at the time you were coming in, so I am sure you did see a lot of new faces- We try to do surgeries at the Hospital firstAlthough there is nothing wrong with surgery centers, should any complications arise during surgery, it is safer to have a full medical team available in just seconds rather than an ambulance ride - We provide our patients the benefit of checking with their insurance company to see what, if any, your out of pocket cost may beIt is our policy to collect half of that amount up front as a surgery deposit- I greatly apologize for not being able to be in contact with our Billing DepartmentWe did have a period of time where our Billing Manager position was in flux, and I am sorry you were not called back! - Although not necessarily worded the way it should have been or explained properly, asking if you wanted to bill your insurance for the inserts was a valid questionWith generic orthotics, we do not bill insurance unless asked by the patient, as most insurance companies do not cover themIf we bill insurance, the cost for these is almost twice as much for a pairWe can only give our patients the cash pay price if they are not being submitted to the insurance company, so unless a patient wants to possibly end up paying almost twice as much, we don't run that risk- I am not sure what happened with the anesthesiologist, as we have no control over who the facility chooses to useOnly the hospital/surgery center would have had that information- Again, maybe the situation was not explained to you correctly, and should have been. We got a phone call from the hospital on February 23, saying that they needed us to get a pre-authorization for your surgeryThis was a complete and total shock, as when we called your insurance company on January 26,to find out what your cost would be, we asked if an authorization was needed, and were told noThis is what caused such an issueAfter being told by the hospital that now an authorization was needed, your insurance company was called again. We were told that they could not guarantee that the surgery would be authorized by the next dayIn an attempt to not move your surgery to a different date, the surgery center was calledWe were told that there would be no issues with you having surgery there the next day, so we moved it to the surgery center- I am sorry that you were there before any staff members, all of the surgery facilities that we deal with require patients to be there an hour and a half before your surgery start time to start the paperwork, IV, vitals, and medication needed before a surgery can be performed, so I am not sure why they were not there. - I am not sure what happened, but no one from our office called and cancelled your surgeryMy staff members called different facilities, and your insurance company multiple times in order to try and get you taken care of, we never would have canceled the surgery without telling you, rescheduling it, and apologizing profuselyAs a matter of fact, when the doctor showed up at the surgery center at 7:00am, and was told your surgery wasn't taking place, it was such an absolute shock to him, he called me to ask if I knew of it being canceled (which I did not)When I personally called to ask the surgery center what happened, they did not have an answer, only said that it was our office who canceled itThat day, I asked all of the employees if they called the surgery center, and they assured me they did not*we were told afterward (and I just called today at 4:12pm), and was told by the surgery center that they do not accept your insurance- I apologize that your husband was called, and not you, that must have been an oversight on our part, and I am truly sorry- Your insurance company did, in fact, approve your surgery on February 24th at 1:51pm, and was valid until May 24, That is the ***son that you were asked to speak with the doctor when you came back in, was so that he could explain what happened and reschedule your surgery for the next day *Had we done the surgery that morning, and not gotten the approval until we did (in the afternoon), your insurance company could have denied coverage because we did not get the approval before the surgery start time, and you could have been responsible for the total cost of surgeryThat is not something we would ever want for one of our patients! I am unbelievably sorry for the mistakes that were made by my staff, as there were a fewHowever, I am positive that no one employed here would ever have done something so malicious as to cause one of our patients undo painWe strive to make our patients feel as important as they truly are to us, and would never want anyone to feel as unimportant as I am sure you felt on that dayFor this, I apologize from the bottom of my heartYou are important to us, and we never meant for you to go on in painI wish that your time here would have been more like our usual patient experience, and you could have been discharged feeling much better than when you came in! If you have any other questions, or concerns, please don’t hesitate to let me know! Sincerely, Amanda C*** Practice Manager Rocky Mountain Foot & Ankle