Billing Disagreement on Meet and Greet OB Sessions with Weill Cornell – Seeking Advice on Next Steps

Hi, I live in NYC and just had my first baby at Weill Cornell. I switched from Mount Sinai OB to Weill Cornell ~ 20 week mark.

I just saw that I was billed $4,390.00 (and charged 2,217.30 towards my HD plan) for a routine OB in-network April visit. I flagged this to the billing department, and they followed up that "Your insurance processed the claim towards your deductible leaving the balance due from you. Per the records you have over 7 visits" I responded: "It seems there’s a mistake in the billing – When we asked back in January 2024, I was explicitly told by the front desk receptionist at West 80th Weill Cornell that these sessions would not be billed, as they were simply 'Meet and Greets', and only lasted 3 – 5 minutes with no medical content at all. Had I been told otherwise, I would not have scheduled them, and I would have expected this to be clearly and correctly disclosed ahead of time, when your teams offer a meet and greet as part of the OB practice. This situation is very upsetting to me, and negatively impacts my perspective of Weill Cornell’s practice given this misinformation that we were told and the subsequent unfair billing policy, and I hope we can rectify it fairly and promptly. Correct Visits: 1/11- initial prenatal – YES 2/12- prenatal care – 3 minute Zoom Meet & Greet – NO 3/13- prenatal care – 3 minute Zoom Meet & Greet – NO 3/22- prenatal care – 3 minute Zoom Meet & Greet – NO 3/25- prenatal care – 3 minute Zoom Meet & Greet – NO 4/1- prenatal care – 3 minute Zoom Meet & Greet – NO 4/5- prenatal care – 3 minute Zoom Meet & Greet – NO 4/8- prenatal care – 3 minute Zoom Meet & Greet – NO 4/10- prenatal care – YES 4/18- prenatal care – YES I suggest that you 1. Retract the meet and greet sessions from being billed in order to enable you to resubmit these final visits with Allegra Cummings, as part of the fully covered prenatal visits 2. Additionally, it is incumbent on the Weill Cornell staff to provide an accurate and clear policy regarding billing for these “meet and greets” to all obstetrics patients to prevent future misunderstandings." They just got back to me that: "Per the department: Since this is a group practice and this pt was a late transfer at 20 weeks, we do not bill global for the delivery. We billed for the visits including the other MDs at the practice and the midwife. Altogether, pt had 12 visits with providers with the practice. "

What would you do if you were in my shoes? I feel like they should have disclosed that a 5 minute Zoom Meet and Greet is billable, which they didn't and I don't understand what it means that "we do not bill global for the delivery" or why that matters to me in this scenario

submitted by /u/Delicious-Sun-9818
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