I was just had a question for those of you that go to Tree House Pediatrics. I understand that it comes highly recommended and I am currently sad to report that my favorite pediatrician changed locations to one that is way too far south for us now. I would like to go to Treehouse...my question is...what do they mean when they say they charge you the entire first visit to be paid if you have not yet met your deductable? That seems a little silly if you have health insurance. Why can you not just pay the normal copay? Is anyone able to explain this to me?
Thanks!
Unless you have a very low deductible, the entire bill will likely fall below your total deductible for the year and therefore is an out-of-pocket expense.
Deductibles are something we all have to get through at the beginning of the year.
There is one kicker in this. If you have more than one policy that covers your child let me know and I will explain further.
B. K
We go to Treehouse and use Dr. Chang. We also highly recommend them. We've only ever paid the co-pay (we're with Blue Cross/HealthSelect).
I for one DO NOT recommend this group.
We chose Dr. Addy as our pediatrician before our daughter was born based on her high recommendations. Unfortunately for us our daughter was born on 12/20 which seemed to interfere with her vacation plans so her partner was our contact. I can't remember his name, mostly because he only came to the hospital once to see us, but at the time there were only 2 doctors in the practice. Our daughter was jaundice and lost a lot of weight because of feeding problems so we had to stay an extra day in the hospital which put us at Christmas Eve for an evaluation. He called and said the nurses would make that evaluation since he wanted to stay home and have Christmas with his children. That should have been the red flag.
We were rushed in and out at each of our visits, and being new parents we thought that was just the way it was. At 10 months my daughter was VERY ill, not eating, sleeping a lot with trouble breathing. We were in and out of the office for a week mostly seen the NP since the doctors were too busy to see her, even on our third visit. The phone calls we made at night were met with curt answers and made us second guess our intuition that she needed immediate attention (we were told that she was throwing up because they have sensitive gag reflexes and her coughing was causing her to projectile vomit!).
In addition, THEY CHARGE FOR PHONE CALLS AFTER HOURS THAT DO NOT END WITH AN APPOINTMENT THE NEXT DAY!!!!! WHAT!!!!!
We ended up in the ER with pneumonia. The ER doctor stated that we could have avoided the ER visit if she was treated appropriately in the doctor's office. Our doctor was paged, but it took them 45 minutes to respond! The ER doctor suggested that we look elsewhere since they obviously were not concerned about their infant patient. When we talked to Dr. Addy about the circumstances she stated that our first mistake was not taking her to the correct ER (Dell Children's). We took her to the closest ER (RR Hospital) again being first time parents we didn't realize there was a difference and our doctor was not consulting us in ANYWAY.
We switched immediately to Wyoming Springs Pediatrics, Dr. DeHaro, and saw exactly what good pediatric care meant. Our daughter was treated for asthma and allergies and is a healthy, happy 4 year old now.
Things may have changed in the last 3 years, but I cannot in good conscience let ANYONE consider this practice without hearing our story.
I don't use Tree House, but I do use Pediatric Associates and I know that they charge us a flat annual fee of $115 to cover charges that insurance companies aren't fully covering. They started doing this rather than to continue to drop accepting various insurance companies (i.e. Aetna, United Healthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield, etc) who had all decided to stop paying for services rendered that had previously been covered. They also have a lab right on site and can get our lab results to us in approximately 15 minutes or less. A GREAT Pediatric office is WELL worth the extra fee to me and I LOVE Pediatric Associates! Hope this helps.
That all just depends on your insurance. If you aren't required to meet your deductible they aren't going to charge you for that. Just your copay. We do go to Tree House Pediatrics and see Dr. Addy. We love the drs. and nurses there but I will warn you it is sometimes hard to get in (depending on your Dr.) and they do some weird things. Such as they will not schedule a sick appt. the day before. You have to call that day to get in. Also they will not schedule sibling well checks together. This really bugs me because I don't want to make 2 trips over there and drag both my kids along. I'm not sure why they do these things this way. You might ask. Just wanted to share that. Good luck.
