Dr. Fremio Vargas, MD

Mr. Vargas visited me in the hosptial several hours after I was admitted on Sept 29th, 2008. I was under the impression that he was part of the Lorain Hospital staff but evidently that was not the case.

This gentleman was in my room approx 10 minutes and verbally told me that I needed to have my gall bladder removed
because it had stones in it. He made it sound like a crisis was fast approaching if I did not immediately schedule this
operation.

I obtained a 2nd opinion and was told that I had a single large stone in my gall bladder and an operation was not
immediately required and I was in no danger.

I just received a bill on Jan 21st, 2009 in the amount of $225.00 from Medical Management Solutions.
(3 and 1/2 months after the fact...)

A call to my insurance carrier revealed that this bill had not been paid due to an invalid place of service code, but
the description on the bill indicated that No response was received from the insurance company.

I attempted to contact the billing dept at Medical Management Solutions at 10:55 am on Jan 23rd 2009 and
got an automated message stating that office was closed, and then it went on to list the normal hours to call
between 8am - 12am Mon thru Fri.. It then gave me the option to press 1 to leave a voicemail.... when I was
transferred the message indicated the mailbox was full....

After serveral more attempts I finally got thru and am now sitting on hold, every 60 seconds the phone connection
rings back to the same automated message stating that the representatives are handling other customers...
so far its been 10 minutes and still no response....

Regardless of this doctors surgical ability, the manner in which the billing and customer service is handled is
absolutely terrible. Unless improvements are made to this service I must recommend that you steer clear of this
doctor. Good customer service is an important part of health care and with the high insurance premiums that we
are all paying, it should be alot better than this...

I look forward to a response from Medical Management Solutions, 221 W. 21ST Street, Lorain Oh 44052

BE PREPARED TO BE ON HOLD FOR A VERY VERY LONG TIME IF YOU CALL THEM... I AM GOING TO
DRIVE there to see if I can reach someone.

I am very disgusted with the poor level of customer service.

Medical Management Solutions can improve their service by correcting the Voice response system they are
are using for customer service, and by increasing the level of customer service staff who takes these calls.

They should also verify all valid billing codes and FOLLOWUP with the insurer instead of waiting for the insurer to
contact them. (that is not the way it works, plus no one could get thru to them on their poor phone system.)

I've just hit 20 minutes now... still on hold...