St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center — Local services in Phoenix

I dont even know where to start. .From rude staff,rude nurses,being yelled at by a nurse,not letting my son back in the building when he was extremely distraught.While waiting for an MRI..after a while both my son and girlfriend were told to leave the MRI waiting room when I needed them most😪. We were told they had to leave because the room was going to fill up????Lies,plus they were already there?!A few people came in..like 2...?!and they were yelling and screaming like they were on drugs. So my distraught son and daughter in law had to leave as they were ordered to!!!Why??? So they had to leave my alone while I was having severe anxiety..and physical symptoms 😢. Another patient asked for food and they quickly brought her a sandwich and a drink.I asked for food and they promptly told me no?!😪.I had now been in the hospital for at least 8 hours! We waited at least 4 hours to get an MRI...my technician was amazing and kind and professional. Before I finally got the MRI I asked for food again and was given crackers and water...not great,but something..but worse than prison!I feel that me and my family were totally discriminated against for what reason I don't know?!!!From check in desk to finally being done with MRI ,It had now been 13 hours in hospital and I had gotten up at 4 am for work Thursday and did not get a bed until 4 am Friday!!!!24 hour wait and one of the reasons I was admitted was extreme anxiety due to lack of sleep and hydration and stress!I wasn't even offered a bottle of water!Again prisoners are treated better than this!Finally done with the MRI..again couldn't that have waited??!!! I'm given a very uncomfortable gurney, where some lady next to me was yelling at me to shut up..then the nurse proceeded to yell at me while I was dealing with brain issues..and was told "people were sleeping "umm nope..Lady that was yelling was watching TV at 4 am...and this is acceptable??!!I was asked if I was in pain I said yes..I asked for a vicodin..nurse came back with my choice of tylenol,or Ibuprofen which I'm allergic to.I told the nurse I can't take Tylenol..and then she proceeds to interrogate me after being up for 24 hours..again worse than prison,and wants an explanation why I can't take Tylenol, but can take Vicodin which has Tylenol in it! Arggghhhh !So I ended up with nothing. The kind neuro dr.asked me if I wanted something for sleep and asked me what I take and I replied I'm on zero meds..so I said I'll leave it up to you Dr.❤️So now after being up for over 24 hours at this point I'm left on this extremely uncomfortable and painful gurney while my roommate is blasting tv at a loud volume with bright lights on at 430 am! I asked to be moved ...they told me no!! Back to check in..we did our due diligence and confirmed that my insurance BCBS was in network..as It was...before February 1st,but we were not aware of the dispute between BCBS and Dignity Healthcare and were not once notified of this dispute by Dignity Healthcare or BCBS!It was confirmed by the check in person Adrienne or Adriana that BCBS was IN NETWORK!We went there because I also was exhibiting symptoms of ear problems on this day and my Surgeon Dr.Shawn Stephen's works out of St .Joseph and before February 1st..he was in Network, but again no one ,not Dignity Healthcare or BCBS had notified us of this dispute!so however we know?Plus I needed to go to St.Joes as that's where my surgeon is. So if this whole ordeal wasn't stressful enough..your company casually informs me that It was indeed OON for a three day Hospital stay with multiple tests! So many mistakes were made it's unbelievable!!!I work with insurances and HIPPA law..and Compliance.There were so many HIPPA VIOLATIONS ,I lost count! One where my son saw my diagnosis, my discharge date,when I had just been admitted..what?How did they already know my Discharge date on Day 1???So now my son has complete knowledge of my diagnosis, etc!HIPPA!Oh and it was scribbled on a piece of paper!..and we have proof. I also witnessed a HIPPA violation where multiple times my son...

I would rate St. Joseph’s a 5 in all aspects related to patient care. They are not perfect and I’ve had some “off” experiences in the past in the ER but I would not hesitate to go there for care at all. It is a teaching hospital and I’ve had the opportunity to be an inpatient there a few times because of my asthma. Care is excellent for the most part.

However, I rated them a three overall. Their billing functions rate a big fat zero because of the enormous discrepancy between their negotiated rates with Medicare billed at the point of service and the outsourced billing department that sends out bills after the fact.

For example, the negotiated payment for my Fasenra treatment with Medicare is under $500.00. My copay is $40. I pay that at the time of service. Yet, the billing department sends me a bill afterwards for $1375! This is ridiculous! There is no one in the outsourced billing group to speak with because they claim they are using the codes assigned by an outsourced coding department (vs the ones assigned at the time of service by Optum). No one in coding will talk to me either. They are “just following orders” but cannot tell me who to speak with at the hospital who gives them the orders.

It is incredulous to me that the back office functions of St. Joseph’s are so disjointed and no one in patient accounting (a director who is an employee) has ultimate accountability for the results of their collective efforts in revenue cycle functions. I’m a hospital consultant and this is appalling to me.

The hospital put me into collections several times since 7/2020 over these bills. I get this treatment infusion every two months. As a result, my credit rating dropped from 710 down to 520 in less than the span of a year! I worked very hard after my husband died in 2019 to get my credit up. Due to a lack of communications between the Optum group who determines the up front costs for services (an outsourced group from United Healthcare empowered to manage point of care billing at the time of service), the outsourced coders, and the final billers who send out the over inflated invoices that differ so wildly from the negotiated rate, my credit is destroyed. All my hard work is down the drain.

I am collecting a file of evidence of what the negotiated rate is, what I paid and what they billed. After doing some research on my behalf on this matter, Optum was kind enough to give me the name of an actual employee in patient advocacy in the revenue department to speak with at St. Joe’s. Once I have everything pulled together and summarized going back to 7/2020, I will set up an appointment with that person to review it all.

This has all been so frustrating and depressing. What’s ironic is the treatment I receive has been a real salvation for me. It enabled me to get off oral steroids for my asthma, and as a result, I was able to drop over 150 lbs since July of 2020.

May 2024 update. Updating to 5 stars:

I found out that my understanding of what I was told when I paid my copay before my treatments was only partially true. I was fully paying the provider portion of the bill. However, I wasn’t paying the copay for the medication portion.

Unfortunately, I am ineligible for all medication assistance programs offered by manufacturers because I am on Medicare and over 65. That is not St. Joseph’s fault. That is a systemic failure that does not allow Medicare to negotiate the cost of these medications with the pharmaceutical companies.

St. Joe’s has a program to help but I need to apply for all treatments going back several months. It won’t apply to those already in collections.

I guess I need to negotiate a...

This hospital is negligent and could kill you if you are not paying attention. They are disorganized and do not listen to the competent doctors who already have a plan for a patient. The full story with examples is below:

I was rushed there in an ambulance because I was in so much pain, I couldn't sit, stand or lay down. They got me into a room, took my blood and gave me morphine intravenously. That settled me down and then later they did an ultrasound and CT Scan. I was seen by the OB/GYN department for a fibroid that was degenerative. A procedure was done to help alleviate some of the pain and get rid of the dead tissue and fluid. I told Dr. Chambers my concern was that this was my second time at the hospital because the pain was so bad. I wanted to make sure when I left that the medication they gave me would actually help manage my pain so I didn't end up back there from an ambulance. Dr. Chambers said they would keep me for 24 hours for observation to make sure they helped with my pain management. They had given me another dose of intravenous morphine. Then, I nodded off to sleep. That was around 4 am.

Later that morning they moved me out of that room into an area that they had curtained off for each patient (NO DOORS). They gave me gabapentin. I fell asleep after eating fruit for breakfast. And woke up to two new Doctors from the OB/GYN department. Mind you I was not hooked up to any machines this whole time to monitor my heart rate or oxygen and was with a nurse whose computer froze and shut down.

I told these two that I was concerned that when I got home my pain would come back because I wouldn't be on the morphine they gave me. I tried to make them understand that I wanted a regimen of the prescription and over the counter meds that would work. I had tried Tylenol and ibuprofen and neither worked to resolve the pain. They said they were going to discharge me and send me home with Lidocaine patches. Keep in mind, I was still under the influence of the morphine they gave me, so they hadn't observed me to see if what they were telling me to take would work. They asked me if I had thought about a hysterectomy and I told them that had been discussed but because I have Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension that procedure was too risky.

The nurse comes in and says they have a bed for me for observation, but the doctors said they were dismissing me. As you can see the doctors didn't follow Dr. Chamber's orders and were very disorganized. The nurse confirmed that they were discharging me. I got home and a few hours later the pain was back and none of the medication they told me to take worked.

I was logging my medication in my phone and found out that the Morphine and Gabapentin have MAJOR interactions. Here's the side effect: Central nervous system depression (slow or shallow breathing, feeling faint, dizziness, confusion, trouble staying awake). And the paper work they sent me home with says to not take my Tadalafil, which is for my Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. They never told me that in person, nor did they consult a pulmonologist. I'm sorry what? How are you going to just tell a Pulmonary and Heart disease patient to stop taking the meds that saves their life? What a disaster. Luckily, I'm very thorough with my health and caught this myself. I will never go back to this hospital.

The only good thing was Dr. Chambers and the staff she had with her during my procedure. Unfortunately, that is not enough to...