BAYCARE SURGERY CENTER

"At check in, I was informed I needed to pay $3,498 or my surgery would need to be rescheduled! No forewarning…just BOOM! Give us the money! I don't have that kind of money, so they said I could pay half down. I paid $1,749 by debit card, intending to pay the rest later. They said “No”, I had to sign an auto-payment agreement and give them my debit card number for the other $1,749 to be automatically deducted from my account over the next six months at a rate of $291.50 per month!! They obviously didn't run my insurance prior to this, otherwise, they'd have known my only responsibility was for $500! I didn't know until a week later when I looked over my Explanation of Benefits, what had taken place. When I called them to say I was overcharged $1,249, they said they would not refund my money until after they received payment from Cigna and it cleared their bank, which could take up to 30 days! If I hadn't done my due diligence and reviewed my EOB from Cigna, I wouldn't have known this happened and they would have been paid twice for my surgery...once by me and once by my insurance company! Who’s to say if they would have automatically refunded my money unless they were audited! I wonder how many others they’ve done this to? I've never had an experience like this at ANY other facility, and I’ve had 15 surgeries! Other facilities always ran my insurance PRIOR to check in and determined my share of cost! I'm still pretty angry about it! It felt like extortion...they had me over a barrel! Make sure you check the EOB from your ins. company! The nurses were GREAT!!"