DMC Primary Care — Local services in Derry

As a patient of 15 years, I can absolutely tell you not to use DMC. Their billing department will lie to you and avoid your calls over THEIR mistakes.

In 2020 I did not use DMC at all due to a lack of insurance. I contacted them in beginning of 2021 where I was told right off the bat that telehealth appointment copays were waived. They NEVER stipulated that it had to be Covid related and I was told ALL telehealth appointments had no copays. I had 3 separate providers and multiple receptionists between two of their offices tell me the copays were waived for telehealth appointments. On 4/16, they called me prior to an appointment to get a copay and stated then that insurance had just started to require copays for telehealth.

Fast forward to a few days ago, I get a bill from DMC for all my past telehealth appointments this years’ copays. I call billing, spoke to Patty and explain that I shouldn’t have the charges and that 3 providers and multiple receptionists told me copays were waived prior to 4/16. She tells me she’s never heard of that. But her doctors, call center and receptionists have? That’s strange. She puts me on hold to call her manager. A few minutes later Patty comes back on and tells me that her billing manager, Tanya, “knows for a fact that all of her staff knew that was incorrect, never would have said that and the copays are owed”. Incorrect among that many people? Why wasn’t I charged a copay at the time of the visits then? They clearly knew how to take payment and bill over the phone when they contacted me on 4/16, so they would have billed me the copays for those past appointments if they thought they were supposed to. So I start getting upset and tell Patty that they should absorb the copays because I was informed by at least 5 separate people that copays were waived and that’s their fault for not having proper communication with their staff. She tells me she’s transferring me to Tanya, the billing manager. Tanya sends me to voicemail when she had JUST been speaking to Patty MINUTES beforehand. Clearly dodging my call. I requested a call back on her voicemail by the end of the day 5/25. Her voicemail says she leaves at 3:30 PM and I called around 8:45 AM. She never called. No call the next day. Now going on 3 days and no call back. When I called today (5/27) to speak to someone above Tanya, I’m told there’s no one I can talk to and Tanya STILL won’t pick up the phone.

It’s absurd to not take accountability for your company’s actions. I have used the office for 15 years and I can’t even get the billing manager to call me back?

This also comes after they billed my insurance incorrectly as well. My insurance called them to inform them that they billed me wrong and to hold off on requesting payment. 3 days later DMC mailed me out a bill for the wrongful charge. The incorrect charge would have resulted in uncovered items that I would have had to pay for out of pocket. Billed correctly, I owed nothing. Strange. Oh, and at my first appointment in 2021 when I gave them my new insurance and updated to my married name, they decided to bill an expired insurance from 2019 under my maiden name. Patty’s response to that when I called her then? “Well it wouldn’t go through under you married name.” Well it certainly didn’t go through under my maiden name to an expired insurance from 2019 and they sent me a bill for the entire visit (being several hundred dollars) for me to pay out of pocket. The kicker was Patty literally read off my new insurance to me on the phone and when I asked why they didn’t bill that one if they already had my updated information she just said “is there something else I can help you with? No? Bye.” and hung up on me.

That’s too much to be mistakes. And that’s one patient. I have to wonder what kind of messes they put their other patients through who don’t pay attention to their bills. How much money have they received that wasn’t supposed to be paid out to them?

Their billing department should get audited by the...

First off I want to start off with the fact this is not a review of the doctor me and my husband have, who is Doctor Lynch...INFACT Doctor Lynch is a GREAT doctor, this review is of his office staff. His nurse Linda is also very helpful, its the people in the prior authorization department that need to be retrained or need to find people skills or a combination of both. My husband is a new patient and needed to fill out paperwork which is common, but the staff misplaced some of the paperwork he filled out, one form being a Hepa form that gives the staff authorization to give me information in regards to his appointments. My husband is a very busy man with a job that gives him little to no time throughout the day to make and recieve calls, so he asked me to set up a MRI appointment for him, which had to be done at a local hospital after business hours, hence why he needed the prior authorization. So since that form was misplaced they asked if he would come in to fill out another.....he also works Saturdays and was unable to go while they were open, so he called and gave a Debbie or Diane permission to give me the appt info, which was fine but our insurance was giving them a hard time so they were unable to give me much info. After not hearing from anyone for a week, I called and talked to a receptionist who took the info as to who I was and apparently called Debbie, the receptionist came back with "because you are not * we cannot give you any info", I said he has spoken to Debbie and gave permission to her to give me info, but the receptionist said but he never filled out the form, I freaked.....I told her to put me through to Greggs nurse, who allowed my husband to fax the form (why couldnt this be done 2 weeks ago??? You would think that a doctors office would not want to inconvenience their patients, what if he was immobile???). Back and forth and frustration between us and the staff and insurance for 2 weeks. At first it was our insurance that had been holding us up the first week, but one evening we were both home by 6:00 and able to call the insurance and they were confused as to why he hadn't had his MRI yet. I said becuase you had not given DR Lynchs authrization dept the authorization. They said yes we did, we faxed the authorization a week ago and left the lady I referenced above a voicemail, and we mailed you a letter explaining you were approved and the steps you needed to take next. I looked through the mail and sure enough there was the letter. I call the following morning, and of course I was upset, thankfully for Debbie she was not working after that call, instead I left her a stern but infomative voicemail detailing my conversation with the insurance, and had given her all of the information she would need to set up the appt at the hospital. We spoke the following morning, and the first words out of her mouth were "you are not ** I cant give you any information". I held my composure and just asked for Linda, she said why? I said because my husband faxed Linda the form you needed to give me information, maybe before jumping to conclusions you should go speak to her. She stuck me on hold for a bit and came back on the phone with all of the information in regards to his appt which she had finally gotten around to making that morning. At this point its 2 1/2 weeks since his initial appt with Dr Lynch. And one week was wasted arguing about wether or not they could give me info about my husband because his office misplaced an important form. I am not impressed with his office, and wondered what if my husband was on life support and could not read or write or speak, we are young we have no will, would the doctors office just wait for him to wake up and be healthy before giving me any information? I am his wife, I even offered to fax them my marriage certificate, and I pretty much got laughetd at, which is insulting. Good thing this wasnt a life or...

I find for the most part the staff is as friendly as can be, given their caseload. For a doctors office I find DMC is very good, better than the majority of doctors offices, at being on time for your appointment.

The concerns I have with DMC are as follows:

First. The doctors most of us see aren’t actually doctors, they are PA’s (physicians assistants). I find the physician assistants are competent and show a genuine empathy for their patients, however, they are not doctors and there is a big difference between the two.

In the many years I’ve been a patient of DMC, I’ve only seen my primary physician on a couple of occasions and only once when I was having a type of issue that required an elevated level of skill, the other was the initial visit.

Oddly, there is no difference in the amount of money I’m being charged for a visit compared to what friends are charged for a visit when they see an actual doctor at another practice.

DMC should make this well known to their patients as the majority of patients refer to the PA’s as doctor, including some of the very nice ladies making our appointments for us.

Second. DMC MUST take steps to review their process for filling prescriptions. There are too many mistakes, to many delays, and no sense of urgency when patients are out of medication! I hear apologies far to often and have been out of medication on far to many occasions over the years! This needs to be addressed by DMC management ASAP!

Third and final concern. I don’t understand why patients are treated with suspicion when requesting certain medications. We are not all addicts! I have heard similar feedback by many friends that are also patients of DMC.

I understand there are valid addiction concerns, and NH has a well documented Opiod crisis negatively affecting so many in our community. This should not mean when a patient requests a medication that has previously proven effective for an issue or condition they may have, that they automatically have an addiction problem!

Please listen a little closer to feedback from those in your care. Some of us do know our own bodies and can provide valuable feedback on what has previously proven effective for certain conditions we’ve experienced and which medication proved most effective.

I hope this helps someone. My intent is not to rant, but to point out some of the concerns I’ve had and have heard from others in our community. There are many of us that like and count on DMC for our health care.

Please do better!

Best regards,

Joe (not my real name, I’m a patient and would like to...