Complaint Review: MinuteClinic LLC of MarYLAND

My daughter, age 12, went to the MinuteClinic at Cabin John Mall in Bethesda, Maryland on February 15, 2011 not feeling well.

The nurse who saw her took a throat culture and was done with seeing my daughter in literally minutes.  Received an invoice for the services that had NOT been performed, such as checking blood pressure, listening to heart, checking skin and checking tonsils.  The obvious proof was that she marked my daughter's tonsils as normal, which had been removed when she was 2!

In trying to dispute the $102.00 charge for a medical exam that never took place, over numerous calls, and literally hours of waiting times, no one ever dealt with the complaint or called back. 

The bill was recently sent to a collection agency and now I have disputed it.  I called MinuteClinic to complain and they acknowledged that a complaint was raised in February, but it was transferred to the medical department and not billing. 

There amoral part is that with insurance the bill was reduced to $58.55, thus CVS guages people who do not have health insurance.  NOTE; I am on a high deductible health insurance plan, thus $58.55 represents the total money received by CVS. 

Second, noting that places like MinuteClinic often serve the most economically deprived and often least educated segments of society, it offends me that in order to dispute the bill, I had to write a letter and pay my money in postage to mail it.  Many people find it difficult to write letters, and certainly should not have to spend money on postage to file a dispute.  With email, fax, SMS, and the telephone, I believe that this business practice sets out to exploit the weakest members of society.

Big business like CVS is only about the bottom line and does not seem to care about people.  They set up difficult accounting/billing/complaints system for consumers to negotiate and seem to lack the necessary controls to ensure that all patients get top quality care (at a fair price)!