I came to this clinic for follow-up care after a car accident, not serious enough for the hospital, but serious enough to need ongoing attention. Three months later, I still haven’t received that care. The problems started early and compounded from there. My doctor is warm in person, but her follow-up has been a disaster. After we spoke by phone and I thought things were resolved, she reiterated the same erroneous referral instead of correcting it. Portal messages went unanswered for weeks. Instead of discussing the options with me like I asked She referred me for Every kind of imaging possible, such excessive imaging that the radiologist flagged as potentially harmful to my kidneys, and when I asked to discuss it with her by phone before proceeding, she Ignored that request and continue to answer erroneously in the portal She hadn't really read my messages. . Most troubling, she confused me with another patient(!) and sent me for imaging for for " my pre-existing condition", when I was there related to a car accident!. Because this accident was not my fault, that framing could have left me bearing costs for injuries I had no symptoms of before the accident. Not only was she preventing me from getting care she was possibly crippling me financially. Two and a half months in since my follow up visit with her,I still hadn’t received the portal response I needed to move forward, while living with constant symptoms disrupting my daily life. I can’t simply switch doctors. UNC requires me to continue seeing her, and other practices aren’t taking new patients. UNC’s billing system, outsourced to a third party, has also decided I’m uninsured, despite Blue Cross Blue Shield confirming my coverage and the receptionist having the correct card on file. This means every imaging order placed without my consent risks a bill for thousands of dollars out of pocket. The staff range from genuinely kind to at the front desk being so rude it hurts but all of them are operating inside a system that is clearly broken. In one exchange, I received a portal message from a staff member asking me to call a specific number. When I did, I was told no such person existed in the UNC system. I pointed out I was looking directly at her message. The representative said she would be penalized for keeping me on hold too long while she tried to find the person, couldn’t transfer me, couldn’t call me back, and ended the call after I had already waited twenty minutes to reach her without identifying how to reach the person who wanted me to call about my referral. Well guess I have to wait another 48 hours in the portal to find out why I can't call the person at the number they told me to use to call them!. I also have collection agents calling me over the billing error, on top of everything else. I used to work in courts and watched people win cases against UNC billing, only to have UNC refuse to follow through. Legal aid confirmed they have even garnished wages erroneously. I’m reasonably capable and privileged enough to take time off to navigate this. Many people in my community are not. They’re working two jobs, elderly, or don’t speak English, and it breaks my heart that they may depend on this clinic. If you have options, go to Duke or Wake Forest. I sincerely hope UNC gets it together, and my heart goes out to the good staff here who are clearly watching this happen with frustration.
