The Mount Sinai Hospital-Billing and Patient Financial Services

They are a punch of disqualified scammers and thieves . My insurance card says zero copay and they sent me a bill a month after meeting the specialist. Later they sent it to the collecting department. No respect to their long years customer. Extreme rudeness and nastiness .

Two hours on hold
Every dept has their own number

It's like they want this to go to collections.

The worst. The billing and Financial services department somehow don’t communicate with each other. There are 1000 phone Numbers, and most of them either disconnect you or keep you on hold when no one is ever going to answer. I actually discovered, on my own, that i had been overbilled, and I had overpaid. Nobody in the billing department ever saw it. To their credit, they did eventually repay me in the amount of my overpayment. But that’s only because I found the error myself. They send 20 statements at once, at least once a week, even when I have requested paperless billing. I never look at them. I just throw them out. It’s unbelievable that an institution like this cannot have a proper billing system.

My husband was referred to a GE for colonoscopy by his primary care physician due to his family history even though he is below age 40. When I called Mt. Sinai to schedule his appointment I asked if the office visit will be covered by insurance (not the procedure, the office visit). I gave them my husband's name, DOB, insurance info, and the reason for making the appointment as they asked me to tell them before they can do anything including answering my question. Then I was told yes it will be covered after I gave all those information. So I scheduled him to see Dr.Itzkowitz at this hospital. And the visit took place.

After the visit we got two bills: one from the doctor's office and one from the hospital totaling OVER $500. Initially I was told the hospital put in the wrong coding for the insurance, but that wasn't it. It took me about 20 phone calls between 4 different Mt. Sinai numbers and to the insurance to figure out that what went wrong is the person who scheduled the visit gave me the wrong information.

So I let both the doctor's office and the hospital billing know this was due to the wrong info I was given by the hospital staff- why would anybody schedule a visit that would cost over $500 for a short office visit if they knew, when they can go see another doctor just as good for $60 co-pay and nothing else?

The doctor's office kept repeating the coding is correct and not even responding to me and my husband repeatedly telling them that us given the wrong info when I called to schedule the appointment is the issue we have. And get this, the hospital billing is saying the doctor's office and the hospital are two different businesses and the doctor's office has no responsibility to inform us about the separate hospital bill which is over $300 and has no authority to say I don't have to pay the hospital bill. When I asked whose responsibility it is to tell patients they also have to deal with additional hospital fee when patients ask about the cost of the office visit, the answer I got from the hospital billing was 'I don't know whose responsibility it is but it's not the doctor's office or the hospital billing's responsibility.' Whaaaaaat?

I also had colonoscopy scheduled with the same doctor at this place (I am fully covered due to my age) and because this left a very bad taste in our mouths we messaged the doctor asking to cancel both our colonoscopy appointments (they habitually don't return your calls so my husband messaged the doctor directly). The next day I called the hospital to make sure our appointments are canceled, and guess what? The call did not go through. I called many times and different departments and the phone doesn't even ring. I asked my husband to call to test same thing. But when the call was made from two different phone numbers the hospital does not have on record, both times the call went through. So I had to use someone else's number to cancel the colonoscopy appointments for us which BTW was not canceled as requested.

I am trying to find out if it's legal for hospitals to deny phone calls from their patients. To conveniently block our phone calls when they know we want to cancel our procedure appointments sound illegal to me. And I recorded my call not going through but someone else's call going through.

There are similar complaints about all the hospitals in NYC, but Mt. Sinai is particularly bad. I wish I read all the reviews for Mt. Sinai before making the appointment, especially reviews written by former employees who went to the hospital thinking it was as good as it used to be a long time ago only to find out how bad the hospital had become.

This is a city full of medical talents. Do not go to Mt. Sinai based on their old reputation. Beware that seeing a doctor, even a good one, at a hospital means there's hospital charge in addition and Mt. Sinai will do anything and everything to make you pay even for the costs that you didn't even know about.

I have tried to call a number of times to pay my outstanding balance for lab tests that were done in house rather then sent to Quest as requested( which covers these costs in total) and have yet to connect to someone to complete this process. There must be a better way!

As an ex-employee I can still report their billing makes a lot of mistakes. When I worked there I had to get HR involved in correcting bills to conform to the insurance. And now billing through my current insurance is also screwed up. There are departments that still have separate billing information systems and although my insurance is in the MyChart system it can be missing in another system. And the billing notices are sent out well before any insurance would have had a chance to process the claim. And they keep coming - even with different billing amounts! I am also reminded of the turn over of billers who worked in my old department. When you talk to them they seem to mean well, but dealing with this system is infuriating.

Incredibly aggressive billing practices. Even when questioning or disputing a bill, they text, message, mail, robocall over and over again hunting down a 30 dollar copay. After a short (and I mean short) period, if you haven't paid (and they don't respond to a billing question), they then remove the bill from the MyChart portal so you can't pay it except through a collections agency. Thankfully we are in NYC which has better hospital systems that treat patients respectfully. Definitely no need to go somewhere that double bills you without warning or explanation and that aggressively pursues you from day one with a barrage of harassing messages, and then makes it harder to pay.

I’m truly amazed by the skill and dedication of the medical professionals at Mt. Sinai, including the surgeons, doctors, and nurses. However, I had a rather unsettling experience prior to my procedure. Prior to my surgery, I received two voicemails from their financial department with no caller ID, claiming that I owed them $2500. I am a full-time employee with premium health insurance through UHC, and I always diligently pay my bills. Naturally, I ignored these calls, but when I arrived for my surgery, I was met at reception with the demand that I owed $2500.

I was taken aback and explained that I needed to contact my insurance company before making any payments. The receptionist directed me to a small room labeled ‘Financial Department’ down the hallway, and as some previous reviewers mentioned, I encountered a single individual there. He tried to be friendly but immediately insisted that I pay before my procedure.

I asked for a breakdown of the charges, but instead of providing details, he countered with a question: ‘How much is your deductible?’ I informed him it was $750, to which he promptly responded, ‘Then pay $750.’ I was taken aback and furious. I had already paid over $500 towards my deductible, and his insistence on the full amount was unacceptable. I questioned the legitimacy of this charge and his role in the process.

Rather than clarifying the situation, he abruptly suggested I pay $100. This felt like a negotiation, not a healthcare transaction. I firmly declined, told him I would contact my insurance, and left the room, all while feeling uncertain and unsafe about the situation.

It’s disheartening that a prestigious institution like Mt. Sinai has a financial department that conducts itself in this manner. I sincerely hope they address and improve this aspect of their service for future patients.