Arise Austin Medical Center

Reviews 5

MI

Mike Gomez

UPDATE February 10, 2017- The unfortunate saga continues. After supposedly settling my bill with the billing "manager" Aurora back on December 20th, I get another 2 bills in the mail from them! I understand mistakes happen so I call manager Aurora and leave her a voicemail to clear up the balance. No return call from manager Aurora. This pattern of no return calls seems familiar. After not hearing from manager Aurora for another 2 weeks, I get another billing notice in the mail. I leave manager Aurora another voicemail. Again, no return call. 2 days later after not hearing from manager Aurora again, I leave Aurora another message and ask to speak to Auroras manager. Long story short. I finally get a call yesterday afternoon from another employee saying the billing error has been cleared up. Im going to assume billing "manager" Aurora was too busy dealing with other dissatisfied customers to call me back. Again, if you value your time and dont want to deal with bad customer service and poor billing practices, then I cant emphasize enough to stay away from this place! After experiencing poor customer service from Ebony and her manager Aurora, I can now see they have systemic problems from leadership down. Take your business elsewhere. Original Review: Avoid this place! Unfair billing practices!!!!! I too will echo the billing issues this facility has. I recieved a bill over a year after my last treatment here! As someone who is financially diligent to pay my bills, I immedietely called their billing department and left a voicemail to investigate. I never heard back for another 5 months until I received another bill. I called back and left "Ebony" another 2 voicemails without any return calls. Ebony finally answer my 4th call and I explained I had already paid my bills. She said she would escalate to her manager Rebecca and have her call me back. Over a month and 3 voicemails later, I still havent recieved a call back from Rebecca or Ebony. Extremely frustrated, I called today and was connected to their manager Aurora. I explained their unfair collection practice of sending mystery bills over a year later put their customers at a major disadvantage to dispute their records. Aurora offerred a measley 30% discount for the trouble but said the records were accurate and by law she couldnt write it off and had to collect. Ive never had any other medical firm/doctor handle billing collections in this late manner. Thankfully my bill wasnt too much but the principle of the issue was what really bothered me. In the end, my time is more valuable than the small debt and I settled. However, I did tell Aurora I would warn others about their unfair business practices and they would never get my business again. Consider yourself warned!

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Erika A

Ill start off with the positives: My pre-op staff was amazing. Lynn was my nurse and she was absolutely wonderful to work with. I was made to feel comfortable, and experienced no qualms on that arena. Now for my negatives. I went in for a surgery on my foot. My aftercare nurse was the opposite of Lynn. She wouldnt let my companion into the back room, was rude when she offered me crackers. I told her I didnt want any and she said well then you get no painkillers. Since I wasnt aware of that, I said Ill take the crackers. She then handed me two pills and I had to ask her what they were. She said they were percocets. I told her I dont generally take medicine, and was cautious of the side effects so I told her I would just take 1, and she said suit yourself. (The Percocet made me horribly sick 20 minutes later, I was glad I only took one). Now for the billing dept: Id like to talk about this mainly because I hope other people take necessary precautions if they end up having to work with arise. Billing department didnt contact me prior to the surgery to let me know what my cost was. Not only did I come to my scheduled surgery to find out what my cost was - I was put on a payment plan for a specific amount, that turned out to be an estimate. Over the next couple of months my payment amounts went from $3,000+, to $20,000, to $1,200, back up to $3,000. Every step of the way arise said there was nothing they could do for me, and when Id finally gotten close to the 1,200, I was very close to paying. I asked the billing dept that as soon as the numbers were concretely figured out, I would make the last payment (I owed about $150 more). A few months after that I received a bill for $1,290 more. I called and again, they offered no apologies for the roller coaster they placed me on. Im so disheartened thinking that my car buying experience and debt, my student loan experience and debt was more honest and straight forward than my medical care. I hope this doesnt happen to anyone else. Please call your insurance company, get the numbers straight, ensure that they work with arise and that you have accurate ESTIMATES from Arise, and know that they are estimates no matter how arise tries to bamboozle you into believing otherwise.

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MA

Marc Mulkey

I had bi-lateral knee replacement surgery at Arise in late September of 2013. Since I had both knees done at the same time, I was in their hospital for 4 days before being allowed to go home. During the entire time I was there I was well cared for by the Doctors and Nurses. I had large, spacious, private room....which is what everyone gets...and was very comfortable during my stay. I cant say enough about the billing department as well. They have been very helpful in keeping everything straight and making sure that our bills were correct in accordance with our Insurance company, who was problematic through the entire thing. Hopefully I wont have to have anymore major surgeries like this one....but if I do I will be trying to have the procedure done at Arise Medical Center.

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Gerry Soto

In December 2013 I underwent surgery at Arise Austin Medical Center. From pre-op to discharge, everything was great! I was contacted prior to surgery with my cost that would be due the day of surgery. I was also called prior to surgery for pre-op questions. On the day of surgery, I was checked in and escorted to pre-op promptly where a kind nurse got me ready for surgery. Dr. Lima, my anesthesiologist, and the nurses were great and explained everything. In recovery, my nurse was helpful and even played along with my medicated humor. In the weeks following the surgery, I was contacted a few times by my recovery nurse to check on me. The staff and the experience was outstanding and in the future, should I need additional surgery, I will return.

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Brian McLaughlin

the billing department is terrible and for that I will never go back to this facility. I had injections in my back in spring and summer of 2015 and yesterday received a collection notice for $190.47. In most cases an unpaid bill should go to collections but since I paid for my services before the injections Im curious to how I still owe 190.47. The billing department treats their clients like they are stupid and wont explain their billing process. If you have to go to Arise please make sure you have all the billing information before you leave and make sure you have them sign off on your receipt. If I were me and your doctor wants to do surgery at Arise I would ask if there is any other options. Thank you Arise and Ebony for ruining my day.

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