Amelia Glynn4 days agoFrom
A very disappointing and frustrating experience with a ridiculous number of UCSF-imposed barriers to care. I was excited to go to this center because it's new-ish and close to where I live. The first red flag happened when the hematologist ordered duplicate blood tests even though I had 2-week old results for 80% of the tests she ordered. When I questioned why I would need to retest after just 2 weeks she made it seem like it was for my benefit, but later said that it was easier for her/staff if all the labs are with UCSF. I had them remove the duplicates (which only serve to inflate healthcare costs further) and send the additional labs to my lab of choice. I want it to be easier for me, the patient, not easier for UCSF. They accommodated my request after a lot of exhausting back and forth. Next red flag: I'm lucky to have a low-deductible PPO and found it impossible to get pricing information for iron infusions so I could calculate my co-pay for the prescribed series of 5. I was routed and rerouted and rerouted again to various departments. Reception told me to use the "estimator tool" in the patient portal. It's a joke. It appears that it's still in some kind of Beta stage and no one maintains or updates it. It didn't recognize ANY of the codes I was given by the infusion center. How is this helpful? Have any UCSF employees actually tried to use this so-called tool? Unlikely. Next, I called billing who immediately mentioned the estimator tool. (Um, nope, tried that; clearly they never have.) They said that they only discuss bills AFTER the patient has been treated (hmm, so they CAN quickly calculate a price but only after the fact?!) and when I spoke with financial services they said that they only deal with people who need help paying their (astronomically high?!) bills, which I imagine are also coming at some surprise if no one is able to get pricing upfront. If you're still reading, you're starting to feel my seething frustration. After spending hours going back and forth with UCSF and looping my health insurance company in just to try to get a ballpark figure, I got the number for UCSF patient relations to see if they might be able to help me. As I explained my situation, the guy one the other end kept asking (and not in a nice way) "So, I'm not understanding the problem? It's about pricing?" YES! EXACTLY! He seemed baffled as to why not knowing the price of a treatment in advance would be an issue. When I asked if I could submit a request to get pricing information he said that it was too complicated (except that it's just two words: transparent pricing), and that I should send an email (without giving me the email address) and hung up on me. Wow. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. UCSF does not offer patient-centric care. The one star is for the one helpful nurse who actually attempted to get a quote on my behalf. I still haven't gotten an answer about cost and if I don't hear from anyone today I might need to cancel my 5 appointments and start over with Sutter or another medical group, delaying my treatment and adding more barriers to care.
