ComplaintsforSuburban Psychiatric Associates, LLP

• Initial Complaint

  12/06/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  My minor child continues to receive an erroneous bill in which she should not be held responsible - she was symptomatic and ended up with covid. Have attempted multiple times to speak with Lora P******* in which she refuses to return calls or written correspondences. A call was made to inform them of illness the day of the appointment.

  

  Business response

  12/22/2022

  Hello,Thank you for reaching out to the BBB regarding your concern of the missed appointment fee that has been assessed to your child's account. I have reviewed the calls from you to our office and I have staff documentation that on the day of the appointment (appointment scheduled for 6/29/2022 at 9:00) you called at 9:55am and left the following message with our staff for the provider: Pt's mom just called - very upset - just realized that ***** had her appt this morning - Mom has had a migraine since 2 a.m. and fell asleep after being up most of the night.  Our records show that you again reached out to the office once you had received the missed appointment fee invoice with the following message: PT MOM CALLED ASKING IF NO SHOW COULD BE WAVED STATES COVID WAS RUNNING IN THE FAMILY ON VACATION--WAVE?Our provider decided it was not appropriate to waive the fee as you were aware of appointment scheduled with the office and had received several reminders of the upcoming appointment. Our office policy for missed appointments/late cancellations is that if you do not provide 24 hours notice you will be assessed a fee for this. You signed this agreement on 4/21/22 which expressed agreement with the office policies. I have attached a copy of the signed office policies for your review. Please be aware that this charge is in place to avoid our providers not being compensated for their time. Due to your failure to reach out to the office with appropriate time prior to appointment, we were unable to fill the appointment slot and thus the provider was not paid for that time. These charges are in place to ensure that our providers are compensated for their time.I empathize with you that you do not want to pay the fee, unfortunately your child missed the appointment that was scheduled with our office and you did not notify us prior to the appointment to cancel and our policy is that a fee will be assessed for any missed appointment. Regards, Jennifer 

• Initial Complaint

  05/21/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I am a previous patient of Dr. Adam A*****. He was my psychiatrist for 10+ years. I was having an extremely bad mixed episode that started in about September of 2018. Dr A***** began trying new meds to help my mental health. He continually put me on one SSRI after another despite my telling him that things were just getting worse…fast forward to March/April of 2019 and after a second hospitalization due to the meds I examined Dr. A*****’s notes in the patient portal that summarizes my visits. They were practically copy pasted from one visit to the next despite the fact that things were not in fact the same every visit during the time period in question. So I realized that the reason he likely continued to use one after another of a type of medication that was making things worse was because it didn’t look like he had even been listening to me. So I called him on it and dismissed him as my provider. Another doctor changed the meds and I was feeling much better quite quickly. The issue that I am complaining about is that Dr. A***** works for a large psychiatric association in the area suburban psychiatric Associates and they have a large number of the best psychiatrists in the area that work for them. Dr. A***** refuses to let me be seen at SPA by any provider there, thereby severely limiting my options for Care in the area. It has been over three years since I stopped working with Dr. A***** and on more than one occasion I have called and asked nicely if I could be seen there again by someone else and the answer is always no because Dr. A***** said so. I would like to have the opportunity to be able to see someone else from that practice. Or at the very least have it be an option. I feel that he is unjustly stopping me from accessing care simply because he got called out for being a lousy provider. Also, when I did call him on it, he immediately restricted my access to the patient portal making it impossible for me to log back in and get proof.

  

  Business response

  05/24/2022

  Hello Ms. *****, I strongly agree that we do have the best mental health care Psychiatrists, Nurse Practitioners, Social Workers, and Psychologist in the WNY area. I have reviewed your record and it appears that you transferred care out of our office when you were dissatisfied with the services you received. When you transferred your care to an outside provider your account was closed and thus access to the account was also closed, this is standard procedure for any business. If you would like a copy of your records the office will be happy to provide them to you with a signed HIPAA release, please note there is a charge for medical records of $0.75 per page and postage should you request the records be mailed to you. All payments for medical records is due prior to the release of the records. Should you like these records sent to another provider there is no charge from our office for the continuity of your care is our first priority. Regarding your return to the practice, it is not appropriate as the providers which we have within our practice directly collaborate with Dr. Adam A*****. This collaboration may make it difficult to establish a therapeutic relationship and our office believes that the therapeutic relationship is the foundation for the best mental health care. The practice feels you would be better served to find care at another facility/office for all future care.  We wish you the best in your pursuit of quality care.Regards,Jennifer H*****Practice Manager 

• Initial Complaint

  01/05/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  11/19 and 11/22/2021 being billed for a total of 140.50 for "no show fees" )70.00 a piece. I did call and let them the know I wasn't coming, it was not possibly 24 hours notice as, my grandmother died on 11/19/2021, sending obituary. On top of this Krista C*****, dismissed my daughter, a minor, from her practice! Completely unprofessional and not doing "no harm" to her patients!!

  

  Business response

  01/06/2022

  After review of the record I see that you did call to cancel the appointment on November 19, 2021 at which time you stated there was a death in the family and rescheduled the appointment for November 22, 2021. We did not receive any call or cancellation notice from you that your child would not be attending the appointment on November 22, 2021. Had you informed the office that the funeral was scheduled for that date and that you would be unable to attend the appointment proper rescheduling and waiving of the fees would have been conducted. Due to the no call/no show for the appointment scheduled November 22, 2021 the provider felt it necessary to uphold the late cancellation/no show fee. The practitioner made the difficult decision to terminate the provider - patient relationship because the minor in question had cancelled 2 appointments which were scheduled September 27 and October 27 and no show another appointment that was scheduled for October 29. Although this is a difficult decision for any of our providers to make it is necessary for patients to come in according to the practitioners treatment plan. Continued missed and canceled appointments interfere with the practitioner being able to provide proper treatment and evaluation. As a one time courtesy I will remove the charges from the patients account, but due to the repeated missed appointments you will need to find alternate care outside of our office.   We wish you the best in your pursuit of quality care.

  Customer response

  01/06/2022

  Better Business Bureau: I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.  Regards, ******* ******

• Initial Complaint

  11/08/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  This is in regards to receiving a bill for a no-show fee of $75.00 on 8/10/21. I called their office on 8/9/21 to let them know I had been in contact with a covid patient and starting to feel symptoms. Their phone was not working, "the message was the annoying sound saying the phones were not working". I tried to call again the next morning, and the same thing happened. I told them this on my following appointment, and then they sent me another bill. This time I wrote them a letter of explanation. On my 11/8/21 visit, they made me pay $76.00. I am seeking reimbursement for this because it was not my fault that their phones were not working.

  

  Business response

  11/08/2021

  Our records show that patient did speak with the office on 8/10/21 at which time he stated he had to quarantine due to being on vacation. Pt sent email to office on 8/9/21 to cancel appointment but this was not within our 24 hour cancellation window so patient was charged the late cancel/no show fee. The late cancellation/no show policy is clearly described in our office policies which Mr. ******** signed 06/03/2021. I have reviewed our calls from August 9 & 10th and we were not experiencing any phone issues on those dates, if patient received the message he describes he may have been calling the wrong number as our office number was fully functional on the referenced dates. 

  It is unfortunate that Mr. ******** does not agree with our policies, in an effort of good faith I would be willing to refund his no show/late cancelation charge and terminate his account with our office. If Mr. ******** would prefer to continue with our office he must abide by the office policies and no refund will be issued. I will await a response from Mr. ********. 

  Kind Regards,

  Jennifer 

  Practice Manager 

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩