I recently had ORIF ankle surgery about 2 weeks ago on a military instillation and need post op care. Due to my husband being honorably discharged from the army and his active duty insurance ending, we now have metroplus gold insurance as he is an employee of NYC. Due to this, I needed to find a different doctor for my post op care.
My husband called NYU Orthopedics Staten Island on multiple occasions to set up an appointment with Dr. Walls, who accepts our current insurance. He called to confirm this appointment and was told they would see me as a post op new patient as long as I brought a referral from my surgeon and my medical records. We were told we were set to go for follow ups. I filled out all of my pre-assessment paperwork and even got all of the referral documentation and medical records, X-rays and CTs from my pre-op and post surgical that was requested by the office.
I got a voicemail the evening before my appointment. The voicemail just stated to call the office back regarding my appointment. The office was already closed when I called back less than 30 minutes later and I left a voicemail. I didn’t hear from them the following morning, so I called again at 11:27am and left another voicemail. I called again at 12:59pm, since I still hadn’t heard from them and finally got a hold of someone. I explained I was calling to follow up about a voicemail I received regarding my 2:30pm appointment that day and she had no idea why I was calling. She put me on hold and then proceeded to tell me I couldn’t be seen by the doctor as he didn’t preform my surgery.
At this point, my husband got on the phone and explained our situation again and why we can’t be seen by my surgeon as he’s off active duty and that we were confirmed on multiple occasions that we would be seen by Dr. Walls. She said there was an error by their “call center answering company” whom they just started working with and we never should have been given the appointment and unfortunately, there was nothing they could do.
My husband had called multiple times, spoke to multiple different people on multiple different days, including confirmation that it was from the Staten Island location so that is completely irrelevant. If I hadn’t called to follow up, they wouldn’t have followed up with me. We had a 2 hour commute to get to this appointment (and we’re already driving for an hour to get there) and had spend several days to get everything together for them. I had to have someone drive me to the hospital where my surgery was to get the referral and all the documentation requested, all for them to refuse to see me, unless I was seeing him at-least a year post surgery. They accept my insurance, but refused to treat ME. She then mentioned to find a nearby hospital who accepts my insurance and have them treat me post-op. I’m not sure how she doesn’t realize this is no different than what we tried to do with Dr. Walls office. It goes without saying, I would have continued the same care with my previous surgeon if I could.
We understand this situation is complex, but don’t appreciate being treated this way, especially given that my husband is currently an officer in the armed forces.
For those looking to book in the future, be wary of facing the same lack of genuine care or concern.