Family Practice Medical Group - Santa Barbara Reed Loose: My initial visit at the Family Practice Medical Group was with Dr.Payne in the summer of 2020 - totally fine first visit, no problems at all. I ended up having a telehealth visit in 2022, but hadnt been in person for several years, so recently booked an appointment. I ended up missing my appointment this week because of a communication issue (definitely partially my fault).
I called them today to reschedule and they let me know that there was a $40 no show fee - which I was happy to pay immediately. They then proceeded to tell me that a new policy had been implemented back in 2023 that classified existing patients as new patients if 3 years passed between appointments, and that because my last appointment had been in 2022, I had to pay a $240 admin fee (only for new patients). They noted that they werent sure when my telehealth appointment was in 2022 (month/day), but because it was now 2025, I would have to pay the $240 fee. I havent gone back to check when in 2022 my appointment was, so Im not even sure its actually been 3 years since my last appointment, but it was super odd they didnt have this information and decided that the best course of action was to assume my last appointment was in the first quarter of 2022.
I asked them if I would have been charged this $240 fee if I showed up to my appointment this week, and I was told no, which made it seem like they overlooked the fee initially and only noticed once I missed the appointment. When I pointed out that that seemed odd, the person I was talking to decided to check with their manager to see what would have actually happened. I was then told that I actually would have been charged when I showed up at my appointment - which ironically seemed even worse. That means that I would have showed up to my appointment and been given the choice to either pay a $240 fee in addition to my copay if I wanted to see the doctor, and if I had declined, I would have been charged a no show fee. Which is quite literally strong arming the patient into paying some sort of additional fee no matter what.
The biggest issue is that they didnt communicate any of this to me at any point until today - no mention of it when I booked the appointment, and no call in between booking and the appointment date. I asked them if they normally let current (lapsed) patients know that theyll have to pay the new patient fee when they call to book their appointment, and I was told that they normally do, but they forgot to tell me. If I had received that communication, which they say is normal practice, I could have scheduled earlier to avoid the 3 year lapse or immediately decided to look for a different practice if I didnt want to pay the $240 admin fee. And even though they told me multiple times that this was their fault because they didnt communicate this to me, they said I would still be responsible for the $240 fee if I wanted to reschedule.
That was enough for me - I paid my $40 no show fee, because Im happy to correct my own mistakes like an adult. However, Ill be looking for a new practice/doctor because apparently Family Practice Medical Group think its good business to trap patients into a lose-lose situation where they would be charged some sort of additional fee because of their lack of communication.
TLDR: I would definitely recommend visiting Family Practice Medical Group if you would like to give your health data to a business that will happily charge you a $240 lapsed patient fee based on a date they cant even verify themselves. For anyone else, I think its a hard pass.
