Beth Israel Medical Center

Incompetent Billing Department. Extremely poor customer service.

Before my mom was hospitalized here, she was able to get out of bed, walk on her own, use the restroom, and have dinner at the dinner table with the rest of the family. But she needed some help and oxygen ²⁴⁄₇ to do those things. Her lungs were not working very well. But a few days after she was hospitalized, a nurse at the hospital, asked my sister to leave my mom’s room so she could work, turned off my mom’s oxygen without giving her any backup supply and forgot to turn it back on before she left. When my sister came back about ten minutes later, she was terrified to see our mother nearly dying. But she didn’t die then. She lived. But in the two weeks that followed, she lived very miserably, with brain damage. She cried all day and thought the nurses were going to kill her (in fact the same nurse was assigned to care for her again the next day or so). She couldn’t recognize any of us, all the people who were there to care for her, to love her. No one from the hospital wanted to do further investigation. They didn’t call a neurologist, physical therapist or any other professional to try to help her until my dad requested them to. They didn’t seem to want to help us much; instead they were trying to bury this incident. The nurse at least had the decency to admit her mistake and apologized to my dad. However, her boss – the nurse manager – kept denying any wrongdoing. She kept trying to convince us that it was the wall outlet that malfunctioned (which was removed and replaced on the same day).
Typing this now brings tears to my eyes. She didn’t need the extra torture and suffering this incident caused. Other than this incident, some of the staff members (not all, of course) were incredibly rude. One night two PCAs were communicating extremely loudly from two ends of the hallways in front of my mom’s room which startled and woke her up. I opened the door and politely asked them not to be so loud. One of them shouted at me and said that they can speak as loudly as they want because that’s what hallways are for and that I should go inside and close the door, so the noise doesn’t go in. I didn’t want to argue with her and tell her that the door was already closed because I didn’t want any of them to hurt my mom anymore.
Additionally, when we asked for help or to give my mom’s medications on time, one of the nurses kept repeatedly telling us that she had many other patients to take care of, my mom wasn’t the only one, and she can’t always give my mom’s medication on time. One time a nurse tried to give my mom a medicine twice, thankfully my dad saw it and asked her to verify if the dosage were increased. Also, some medication which my mom got through IV was dripping on her bed and the floor for several hours until someone fixed it at my dad’s request.
Moreover, the nurse manager held a meeting to let us know that when her staff walk into that room, immediately they feel unappreciated, they complained that we do not appreciate them enough. It disgusted me to no end that they wanted to be appreciated for the substandard quality of service (along with many mistakes) they provided.
My mom would have been around today. We would have celebrated Thanksgiving together next week. She would have watched me graduate this December. She probably would have yelled at me this morning for forgetting gloves, scarf and my hat in a 22 degree weather outside. But what happened at the hospital certainly aggravating her pain and suffering and expedited her death. And no one deserves this kind of poor quality service. She died on November 5 around seven in the morning at the age of 52.

Here was the worst hospital experience of my life. They billed my insurance for treatment I did not receive, and when I informed them the hospital was defrauding them, they had to start a battle to get any money back. After contacting the hospital directly, they skated the issue and refused to address my concerns, telling me my insurance company’s lawyers could handle it. This hospital has a history of defrauding patients, when it’s a business supposedly based on helping people in need.

I had a little accident and ended up in ER at Beth Israel Medical Center.
Probably because my injury was not life-​threatening, it took almost five hours for me to finish the check up and get out of the ER. It was a long wait and definitely not a five star hotel, but all the doctors and staff were incredibly friendly and comforting. I was impressed how they kept their empathy and kindness when they were dealing with hundreds of wonded people who couldn’t stop complaining and whining. If you can, you might want to avoid Monday or Friday, though. They said Monday and Friday were usually crazy busy.

Even tho they have one of the best maternity ward for delivering baby and post care. I writing this AWFUL review for the clerical work! They to forgot to include a letter in my baby’s name on the birth certificate and SS card# They just wasted so much of my time as we need these documents for health care coverage for the baby’s first few months. I spoke to many of my friends that also delivered there and they had issues with their certificates too with incorrect baby sex or missing parents name. The funny thing, when I went back this week to get the certificate corrected, there was another family there complaining about their child’s birth certificate. So if you want to deliver your child here, the place is great but make sure everything is all good with your documentations and applications before you leave the place to save yourself a ton of additional headaches. So to their clerical services, you suck a$$ big time!

Stay away at all costs. I’m originally from Boston, and the Beth Israel there is considered one of the best hospitals, so I thought the one in NY is as good. I sadly learned the hard way it’s not. Be prepared for unresponsive and untrained doctors (I called several times to make a follow up appointment. No one answers the phone or returns messages) and has nightmare billing.
I’ve gone to BI twice. Once for an emergency foot injury (I severed the tendon on my foot) and once for a simple diagnosis of a shoulder injury in May, 2008. It’s now Dec, 2009. Not only does BIMC continue to send me random bills for varying amounts with no explanation of benefits every months since my appointment, they practice illegal billing practices:
–they did not bill my insurance company for the shoulder diagnosis within in the insurance company’s stated window BIMC knew about. BIMC attempted to collect these funds from me. This is against the law and I have to give my insurance company props for explaining this to me
–BIMC made an unauthorized charge with the CC they had on file that they refuse to refund (even though I have in writing from them they made an unauthorized charge and I would be refunded).
–Another time they double charged my CC, and instead of reversing the charge on the spot, they made me come back a couple of days later to get the charge reversed, even though my mobility was severly limited because I was on crutches. It was their mistake shouldn’t they be coming to me?
Net, net the quality of care sucks here (for my foot injury, the doc had to restitch me 3 times because she couldn’t seem to get it right. I also had to argue with her that I wasn’t in shock. I really couldn’t move my toe, which is what happens when a tendon is severed).
The only thing this place is good at is giving patients a headache and bleeding them dry