Quote:
Originally Posted by loonlovers
My husband and I were also patients of Dr. Smirnoff and left his practice because of shoddy and illegal billing practices. After declaring our insurance carrier (Bankers Medigap) the worst insurance they had ever worked with, they required payment of office visits and then billed the insurance company and were promptly paid by Bankers. They had never submitted any prior claims to Bankers on our behalf despite our repeated requests to do so.
Once we paid the balance Smirnoff's office said we "had" to pay, we submitted our claim to our insurance company and they informed us that Smirnoff had already submitted a claim and had been paid.
I tried repeatedly to have Smirnoff's office refund our money but they said "prove that we have received the insurance company claim check." I did that (provided a copy of Bankers cancelled check with Smirnoff's office endorsement on the back and they still refused to make the refund of over $300 to us. I finally called the Florida Insurance Commission and they advised me to file a complaint and they provided me with a complaint number to use.
I decided to give Smirnoff one last chance and informed them that I had started a claim with the bureau in charge of physician fraud and gave them ten days to refund our money. The refund was sent to us within a few days. This process took over one year!
The office is managed by his wife and his daughter is the bookkeeper. There is no way to speak with the bookkeeper and I was informed that she "never makes a mistake" and "your insurance company are liars."
The entire process was disgraceful. Unfortunately, our experience is not unique as I had sat in their office and watched other elderly patients in tears because of billing/insurance issues.
I take no pride or comfort in this post but have decided to share my experience in the hope that it will help other patients deal with or stay away from this practice.
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Good for you for following through! And congratulations on your success! I worked in medical offices for many years and this Dr's office sounds like a disaster.
When an office treats you like this, it makes no difference how good the Dr is or is not. If you are treated poorly in the outer office, no one wants to see a Dr associated with the craziness.
Thanks for posting your experience.