St Luke's Kansas City, MO Metro Medical Physicians - St. Louis, MO Mecical Codes in error, Charges Extravagant, Thoroughly ignored dispute process, Scam of Self Payer Kansas City missouri

The new CEO (as of 2019) Melinda Estes of St Luke's Medical Group (Barry Rd) is either unaware of or allowing the customer service reps to ignore the billing dispute process and let the bill slip into collections.

Not one rep was concerned that the codes do not reflect what happened in the ER. Instead of being embarrassed or concerned they are apparently taught to omit various key procedures, withhold information that would be helpful to the patron, pretend itemized statements were mailed out and faxes were not received.

I faxed a letter 12/16/19 to Melinda Estes begging for help to resolve the error so I could pay quickly.  No response.

To make matters worse, Metro Medical Physicians receives their codes from St Luke's, so their billing is in error also.

Metro's code description for 99284: ER detailed, moderate complexity  $117 Medicare.  But Metro doesn't know that Melinda's coders should have coded 99201: new patient, level 1 problem focused, straight forward $42.26 Medicare.  Every single day St Luke's negotiates prices from insurance and Medicare; but you discern if she's being fair to the self payer: Metro's price is $776.00 to me for 99284, not even close to what she negotiates with Medicare ($117).  That's disturbing and unacceptable.

Her team would not give codes for these: 1. HC DX Foot Min 3 views Left  2. HC ER visit class lll w/ Proc.  The best I found was 1. 32010215 REv 0320  2. 45000784 REV 0450  Not much of an explanation is it?  Why would I pay a dime for something that's not transparent? 1. $763. and 2. $1,530.

Our Event:  30mins tops, NW Barry location, ER, 2 people calmly in waiting room, my 17 yr old wheels himself in and to waiting Rm 7 (no staff needed); there's no blood, no tears. X-ray foot, see Dr. Martin for 10 mins, done!  We made a record of the whole thing. It was "problem focused", "straight forward".  Self payers are a target for scams.  $3838 for what?!!  It's either a mistake or theft.  (St Lukes $1719 + $2119 Metro)  Too, it appears I'm being billed twice for "new patient" bull.

I am here at Rip Off Report because the erroneous billing appears to be a scam aimed at self payers and not an honest billing/coding mistake.  I literally can't pay this bill b/c they won't see if the codes match the medical records.  And coding to the highest code?  More greedy tactics and simply gross.  Melinda's team is rotten. I would clean house in that department if my crew was scaring away the $$$$ & making St Luke's a HATED place in the community.  (Been at it since 9/28/19 to present 1/24/20  See the BBB, Yelp, and other complaints - Attorney General's office, etc)