Sutter East Bay Medical Foundation Care Center - Albany, California

Luis D. S.

My original appointment was rescheduled without a reason. Fine. I show up to my new appoitnemt for a physical exam and the doctor is 30 minutes late. Apparently the doctor had an "important meeting". Fine. The exam lasts less than 15 min and we order lab work. The following month I get a bill $700. The office is still using insurance which I no longer have from 2012. So now I have to deal with that.

Lisa L.

This review is about Sutter Health’s billing practice and not the service quality of the doctors and nurses. Sutter Health bills its patients $300 extra on top of the annual exam for asking questions such as “is my blood sugar normal?” because it deems such question outside of scope of annual checkup, and not covered by “preventative care”. They claim it is because of insurance coverage, but how can Sutter charge $300 for a simple question where no diagnosis or prescription was rendered?

Stanley W.

Sutter tried to charge me $343 for an annual physical that should have been free. They claimed it was for a "comprehensive exam" as a new patient, even though the doctor only spent three minutes asking two questions and doing a quick check.

I challenged the charge, pointing out that my adult kid under my insurance plan, also a new patient, wasn't billed for the same thing. I even brought a written statement before my visit saying I wouldn't pay extra for preventative care, but Sutter didn't disclose any additional charges during the appointment.

After my appeal, Sutter reversed the charge, resubmitted it to my insurance, and reduced my bill to $0.

Avoid this medical office if you can.

Amanda R. D.

I've had nothing but amazing care from daone over 10yrs ago. I see NP Kirkham. Highly educated, gracious , great listener. I have illness, see many departments and doctors all because of NP Kirkham and her skills. She cares for my wellbeing and it shows. I love the Sutter health communication system. I Always recieve immediate answers. That's not to say I've had mishaps and mistakes happen but we must remember that doctors are human and our expectations of others is far higher than what we expect of ourself so kindness and understanding with knowledge of your issues is needed by the patient and goes a long way in one's healthcare.

Bernice G.

I have never had a worse experience with a doctor’s office than with Sutter Health. Doctors don’t respond to messages, they lie about giving you refills of your medications, and don’t care about the well-being of their patients. If you are considering this office, I would recommend any other option available.

Kimberley G.

I often have to pay out of pocket for actual healthcare because I do not usually get good advice from this place. I better going to a virtual care center like Plush or Dr. Says. I am planning to change my plan as soon as possible. Before I switched to Medicare Advantage I had a doctor I felt comfortable with from over twelve years. The only good care I received from Sutter was my now retired Gynecologist, Dr Rudd. He was excellent, kind and a brilliant doctor. I miss him. He is gone now so I can not factor in his valuable contribution.

RichS

Stay away from this place! Terrible service, unprofessional, high charges, wrong prescriptions sent to pharmacies with wrong phone numbers confusing the pharmacists and resulting in late care being provided. And worse when we dispute with the facts of all this it is denied. I will never recommend this bureaucratic nightmare of a place and never work with them again. Save yourself a lot of frustration and go elsewhere.

UPDATE: It took me many hours on the phone and writing long detailed explanations, and then being declined three times, but finally out of the blue someone with authority over there and some level of intelligence read our situation and took care of it. Raising my review from 1-star to 2-star as it was still an unbelievably time-consuming nightmare dealing with an awful bureaucracy but in the end they did the right thing since the services they provided us were useless due to their ineptitude.

Katia P.

Just moved here, went for an annual check-up. No health issues - doc did all the regular blood pressure, etc. Nurse offered to do a blood test (which in my experience is common to check for cholesterol, vitamin levels, etc.) No big deal - standard preventative care. Two weeks later, get a notice from my insurance and stuck with a $285 bill, um - OK maybe they missclassified it? It's clearly preventative (and I'm not going to pay $300 for a simple blood test that the nurse suggested off-hand). Called them, they said they will check the coding review. Called them a few weeks later, they said they corrected it (they had made a mistake) and now I don't owe them anything, saying they'll send it to my insurance in the next 2 weeks. Insurance, 2 months later, say they haven't gotten anything from them and I still owe $300. Complete annoyance, waste of time, and feels like I got ripped off my the nurse. I will not be coming back here and would not recommend. I want to trust my doctors to not be sliding in things and then trying to get a better pay-out from me instead of properly billing my insurance. Saga continues, with a lot of wasted time staying on hold between my (not cheap) insurance and Sutter. Had a similar issue at another Sutter facility where they're again checking the coding. I certainly hope that they're not doing the illegal thing of trying to suck money out of their patients but their incompetence is incredible.