Highland Hospital — Local services in Oakland

What an awful place. Go somewhere else.

I went in to visit a patient, got mistakenly processed as a patient, and charged 2000 dollars.

Backstory: I wanted to visit a patient in the emergency room. This was a level 1 trauma patient involved in a car crash the night prior. I was there at the car crash, called 911, and attempted to help him before professionals arrived. I showed up to the hospital the next day after he was stable to ask him about any blood-borne pathogens he might have since I came into contact with his blood. I showed up to Emergency Care and stated what/why I was there. I followed the staff's directions thinking they were directing me to entering as a visitor. I waited, gave them information, and signed what they asked for. However, they mistook me as a patient. Lo and behold, a PA comes out to see me. I'm confused because I thought I was going to be a visitor. I try to explain to the PA that I was their to visit a patient. The PA didn't understand it until 30 minutes later of explaining it.

Later, I then get the bill for ER admittance of ~$1700. I attempt to talk to someone at the hospital about this because I only wanted to be a visitor. I'm directed to the billing department where I talked to a crabby woman named Elois Thomas. She sends me a "dispute form" by mail. I fill it out and send it back via mail. Its rejected because the charges are "accurate". I'm not familiar with the process so I start asking questions about this. She gets angry with my confusion and frustration. Not flexible at all in helping me with mistaken admittance.

She then directs me to the Patient Safety Office/Complaints for this. I attempt to get a hold of someone, but no one ever picks up. After weeks of calling, someone finally picks up. Unfortunately, the call gets disconnected. After more weeks of calling, I finally get a return call saying that they have received my information, are working on it, and will hold the bill from going into collection. A month later, the charges disappear from the online portal. Great, they listened to me and I don't have to pay this extortion. Wrong.

Months later, I get a call from the collection agency saying that I owe them money with interest. Its now $2000. I then contacted the hospital billing to find out what happened. Apparently, the charges disappeared because the account went into "bad debt status". It then took the collection agency months to receive the account information. I didn't know what was happening to the account because there was no communications to me, there was no notice that it was going to collections, and they charged interest during that time. Eventually, the billing department stops answering my questions on the online billing portal as I attempt to figure out what's going on.

I then went in-person to find someone at the patient safety office because I never heard of what came of my complaint/dispute. The people at the hospital direct me to the corporate office. I show up but everything is locked down. One nice random lady helps me by fetching the manager of the department. This manager was nice, said that people weren't supposed to show up here, and said that he would have someone look into it. A nice lady from the department calls me and takes some information. After about a month and a half, I receive another call after the investigation saying they sent me the results via mail. They sent it to the wrong address. They fixed the address and "sent it again". I never receive this second either. After about 3 weeks of trying to get into contact with them, I'm finally able to talk to someone and learn that they also concluded the charges are accurate.

I pay over the phone but they overcharged me by about $110. I'm attempt to find out why this happened and if its correct. However, It has been weeks and the billing department has not answered my questions. I've left messages, emails, and phone calls.

What an awful place. If you can, go...

Missed diagnosed ear infection. I was told it was allergies. Was told to take over the counter allergy medicine, if it was not better in a week to come back. Came back 1 week later, now I no longer can hear out of both ears! Told me to continue to take allergy medicine for another week. Said it was not ear infection cause there was no blood. After a month of back and fourth with Highland. Finally a family member paid for me to go to a totally different Hospital. Doctor looked in my ear and right away said "oh my you have a bad ear infection, why did I wait so long". I almost lost my hearing permanently cause of Highland. I was giving antibiotics and my hearing came back over the next couple of days. My ears are now sensitive since this happen. I get ear aches and pain easily when I have any kind of cold. I never ever had problems with my ears before until this happen. Avoid this place at all cost. Had a worse experience in 2012 when having a baby. Almost lost my baby cause they did not want to give my a c-section after a failed inducement. My baby even pooped in me. Nurse and Doctors could not make up their mind if the medicine should be turned up or down. I was pissing cranberry red urine, in extreme pain in my liver. Even after a uperdural. One shift was concerned then next shift wasn't. I would not dilate past 4 after several days. Finally a c-section was done. Thought the nightmare was over only to experience more nightmare in the recovery unit. I got no help from the nurses except one late night nurse. My child was not drinking my milk and I kept stressing my concern. They kept telling me she was. Even thou there were no dirty diapers happening. I knew something was wrong. I requested the Doctor and when he came in found out these nurse were filling out a binder saying they were coming in my room helping and changing my baby's diaper. LIES! After that hours before my release they were checking on me regularly and treating me like a patient. Also night before leaving I developed large palm size blister that wrapped around my stomach where they left surgical tape on me. More pain. During this stay my baby was making a gargling choking sound off and on, I asked nurse about it and she said sometimes babies that are from c section get fluid stuck in their lungs and she proceed to hold my baby upside down and stick a stick in her thoart and made her vomit on bed. She did this several times. I watched i horror an tears. Later a Doctor came in a firm told us to don't ever do that. She said it in a way as if we did it. The whole time some worker would pass by our room and yell feed your baby. My baby was crying a lot cause she was not getting any milk. I was trying to breast feed every 20 minutes and even had the specialist come and check, she squeezed one tiny drop and said your fine. I was not. It wasn't until the 3rd day when I requested the pedi Doctor come I was giving formula and help. It's too much to list everything that happened here. Total nightmare for first time parents. This place is...

I had by far the worst medical experience of my life at Highland Hosptal. I crashed my electric scooter in Berkeley and was taken there last week. I was seen in the ER and am not complaining about the initial treatment, which involved several scans and 10 stitches for a cut on my face. It was what came afterwards that was terrible. I was admitted based on a fractured vertebra (C7) and nose, but had to wait in the ER overnight because there were no beds upstairs. The ER stations do not have nursing call function. Direct quote: "They've been broken for years. Every time they get fixed they break again right away."

I got upstairs the next day and the room and floor were nicer than I expected. Of course the food was terrible. I had no problems or negative interactions with the nurses and staff. But there were 2 major problems with the care that I got. The first was that the major wound and the other scrapes on my face were a mess when I got up there and were never effectively treated, cleaned or dressed. When I left there was dried blood and effusions all over my face. It took me 2 days at home to clean it off. Several days later there was substantial discharge of foul smelling pus. I don't know if it was failure to properly clean the wound in the ER or the lack of care afterwards but that is a very poor outcome. I went to another urgent care clinic to address this. The second is that I lost consciousness at the accident. Based both on that and on subsequent symptoms I am sure that there was a concussion, but there was no mention of this or attention to it at all once I was upstairs. The only time i saw my trauma attending was just before discharge.

Finally, they told me in the ambulance that they had my scooter and would leave it with the ER. A Berkeley police officer with me confirmed that it was left there, but when I asked there was no information. I filed paperwork when I was there about this lost item and have contacted them again but don't have much hope that it will appear.

I am a UC Berkeley professor but before my recent move here my career was at elite medical schools. Particularly by comparison the level of care at Highland is...