Children’s Hospital Colorado

I love this hospital! I have had some extremely negative experiences but the consistent positives out weigh those. My daughter has Juvenile Arthritis and a double hip replacement. Both the rheumatology and her surgical teams have been excellent.
On the downside, there was a mechanical malfunction with her pain medicine pump immediately following her surgery which lead to absolutely NO PAIN MEDS about 6 hours after a total hip replacement!!! The nursing staff’s response was immediate and sympathetic but it still happened. And don’t expect the caregivers to receive courtesy meals for overnight stays; I have always been given a voucher or been able to get room service delivered when my daughter received her meals.
We have been to the ER, and it wasn’t any different than any other one — not super awesome but not super awful…

It would have been nice if someone had informed us that an overnight stay for basically nothing would be costing nearly $ 15,000…

Brought my daughter in. The check in lady was super nice and so was the nurse assistant and nurse. Doctor was a little curt but I think it’s because she was so busy. She was thorough and did her job well, though. No complaints. It took a while to be seen but what do you expect in the ER.

Hospital itself is great, they care for so many sick children and they’re a blessing.
But, the new valet service is BS. I’m mad enough at the new valet people that I would give 1 star, if I were a jerk. As it is, I hope that someone at the hospital reads this and talks to the valet employees. They are slow, they are rude, and I watched (in the 10 mins I was waiting for my friend), them almost wreck Twice. Twice! In 10 mins… They just recently switched companies to save money, but they need to switch back, and in a hurry. The last crew of valets were awesome, and ALWAYS friendly. I won’t be surprised if I hear that the new guys get in trouble for dinging/​wrecking cars. You buy cheap, you get cheap…

I am working with the Public Relations Department to resolve this issue. Will update once it is resolved.

Thanks anyway Amy but I’ve already talked to your finance department and your PR department. They were rude and unhelpful. I told them they coded the bill inaccurately and that if they changed it from a dental code to a pain code which is why I went there, then my insurance would cover the bill. But because they refused to do that and because a dentist did not perform any procedure that night, neither Tricare nor my dental insurance would cover this bill. But besides that point my son was in excruciating pain when we left and cried the entire night, your sorry excuse cannot cover up that fact. I wouldn’t recommend this hospital to criminal bleeding out from a gun shot wound.

UPDATE:
The situation was addressed. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen ever again. I love this hospital for the care they provide to the children. The parents need that care too in all areas of the hospital. Coffee especially! :)
So I am rating them 3 out of 5 not 1 out of 5 now because the responded so incredibly quickly.
Old review: The service of care from the medical professionals is a 5 star hospital, however, a dear friend of mine posted the following statement (see photo) today on facebook about their food employees. I hope they fix this or they will have a lawsuit on their hands.

We have top of the line docs, up on research and evidence based practice. The kids who come here are in great hands!

This is by far the worst visit in this hospital. I like how there are 6 staff members standing around having a blast while kids are obviously in pain. 4 hours must be the time expected to stay here cause we are right at 4 hours and the doctor just came in look at our son checked his vitals just like the 3 RN’s already did and then he left. Good to see the insurance money going to good use. Absolutely ridiculous having to wait that long. And to make it worse, a RN pops her head in from time to time every hour to say «sorry and thanks for being so understanding I know you have been here for a long time». That’s like a huge slap in the face. Has to be the worst hospital on the planet. Doctor… Missing in action AGAIN. I’m sure I will receive a hefty bill for this bullshit service they provide. I’m starting to wonder if these people here receive more money for the longer you stay here. It’s all a SCAM!!!
We have been here so long our son feel asleep cause he realized the pain was better when he was sleeping. Hospital staff still hasn’t came in to clean the wound 4 hours 51 min in … WTF PEOPLE!!! Hold the phone ladies and gentlemen we have a $ 80 bandaid.

Children’s Hospital of Colorado Aurora, Emergency Department. What counts as an emergency around here?
Crying, sick babies, wheel chair kids, sprain or broken limbs, definitely don’t count! They had better come in not breathing, with a gun shot wound, guts hanging out or brains in their hands. We have been here 4 hours. I have seen adult emergency go faster than this. What in the heck is wrong with these people who lie and say you have two people ahead of you and they call 4 more people and you are still waiting? What gives here??? This place sucks!!! More for the children than for the parents ’cause I am very patient. However, how do you make children wait for 4 plus hours before being called into the area to see a doctor. There is no excuse for this. I don’t care how fully staffed you are. It does’t benefit the children.
And the last thing is our insurance pays for this party!!!

Children’s is supposed to be this world class cancer center and boasts successful heart surgery on newborns. Why then did they screw up something so elementary as my broken knee? I was treated as a waste of space and time because I just had a «bruise.» Because of their misdiagnosis, I ended up walking on my leg broken in three places. This caused further damage and has required me to have multiple surgeries as an adult to fix problems that could have been avoided. Some aspects of my knee had to be removed because they were beyond repair. I am still suffering many years later from the negligence of Children’s.

While the staff and services can be world class here, the long wait times in the ER can be problematic. I was told by the nurse that last night’s wait time was 5 hours. So far we have been waiting 3 hours.

My son was born 17 weeks premature at Rose medical and shortly after had to be transferred to PSL for surgery. I love both Rose and PSL. A few months ago we were recommended by his primary doctor to children’s hospital for the pulmonology department. The pulmonologist ordered an echocardiogram and a sleep study both were done a while back. I’ve yet to here from them concerning the results. For this I am extremely unhappy! I have scheduled a follow up appointment with the pulmonologist and I will be bringing this issue up. If it’s not an assuring response that I get I will not be returning!!! I should not have to call to receive results, I should be called!!!

Okay, I do not suffer fools lightly. The service was okay, but the billing/​administration leaves a lot to be desired. You can’t separate these experiences
So we go to Children’s Hospital of Colorado and soon afterward I see the EOB/​etc on line. Then we get a note from the hospital saying they billed, never heard anything, blah blah blah.
Well its not my problem, so I ignored it
Sometime later I get a second letter so I reply to them. I tell them i’m not their errand boy and they need to call my insurance (not me) if they have a billing problem. Their reply was something about thousands of bills a day.
Okay, so they can’t get off their but to make one call. What is worse its been two months. I wonder that if they have the financial math to think that instead of harassing me they could of called and got this taken care of and probably cost of dollars on hold would of paid for itself.
1) I recommend Children’s Hospital learn from Sun Tzu’s art of war. Do not bring your neighbors into a fight until absolutely necessary.
2) I’m not their service agent, not their go man, not their errand boy. I do not call anyone on behalf of them.
3) if you send me a bill and its not connected to the in-​network EOB.. .I’ll reject it. You better match
I’m sure the service is just fine from these guys.. .yet the way they handle bills proves they care nothing about their customers.

Here is a copy of my message back to Amy J. Responding to her canned message to my review.
I’ve never heard from her again.
Hi Amy,
Unfortunately, my situation was escalated to Lisa Shannon the Risk Assessment Manager. My conversations with her consisted of her trying to make me feel sorry for Michelle Fury because I reported her to her Licensing Board. I also had to hear over and over again Lisa Shannon’s credentials-​which I could careless about.
This statement on the Children’s Hospital is untrue —
The only helpful thing Lisa Shannon said to me was, As a customer, I have the right to voice my opinion to the public on my experience at Children’s Hospital.
I will be letting my friends know about my experience with Ponzio Creative Arts Thereapy at Children’s Hospital.
erica

I have mixed feelings about Children’s Hospital. I’ve been to the ER twice with my infant son, once for an object that he was choking on and once for a serious burn that he received to his hand. Both times we were kept waiting in the ER waiting room for an extraordinary amount of time, for the choking we waited EIGHT HOURS and for the burn we waited FIVE HOURS. This seems like an excessive amount of time. The time we went in for the burn the ER doctor didn’t believe our story about how our son burned his hand on a steam humidifier and told us that she was going to report us to Child Protective Services for abuse. This greatly upset my wife and I, we were dealing with enough stress at the time of our 9 month old having a bad burn, we didn’t need the doctor to treat us like criminals.
On the upside the doctors and the nursing staff in the burn clinic were amazing, friendly and very empathetic. They made this emotional stay overnight at the hospital a lot better. Once you get out of the ER and into either the outpatient or the clinics the staff are great. Something seriously needs to be done about the rude staff and wait times in the ER.

My daughter, who has multiple special needs, had an outpatient surgery here in October 2013. This was her fourth surgery (and third hospital) of this type, so we’ve been around the block (in three states) with this, along with an initial 5-​month NICU stay (not here) and multiple other surgeries and hospitalizations.
Our experience was fantastic!!! Our daughter and us were highly respected, valued, and informed. Everything was explained well and there were special perks like getting to go into the OR with her until she fell asleep (in protective gear) and her getting to take her special blanket with her into the OR and have it ready when she woke up.
The anesthesiologist especially listened to us and recommended Precedex. It was amazing! She has never woken up so well! She loved getting pajamas and not the typical hospital gown. She also loved the pre-​op play area (we did, too). The free WiFi was fast. The waiting room was wonderful and the pre– and post-​op rooms were large.
The cafeteria had excellent food and the price wasn’t too bad. Just look at everything before deciding on anything. The sandwich bar was especially good.
TIP — Be sure if you use the parking garage to go directly to the lower levels. Nearly everyone parks on the main and top level and it’s difficult to get around and there are rarely any spaces. Park closest to the elevator in the NW corner of the garage. There’s also free valet parking (no tipping required).
DON’T MISS — A highlight on the second floor by the main atrium elevators is the Lego model of the hospital. It’s so cool!
Cost-​wise, this hospital was a bargain. Our daughter had a nearly equivalent (same time in pre-​op, OR, post-​op) surgery three months before this one at Sky Ridge in Lone Tree, CO and it was FOUR TIMES THE COST of Children’s. It was $ 47,000 and Children’s was $ 12,000. Plus at Sky Ridge there was only a $ 350 insurance write off (don’t know the Children’s one yet). Children’s was way cheaper than the hospitals in KS and IL she’s been in, and even less expensive than Presbyterian-​St. Lukes and Swedish were I’ve had recent surgeries — comparing costs that can be apples-​to-​apples.
Even though this hospital is quite the drive for us, we will come here from now on.
We also use the outpatient clinic and it’s great, too.
For someone with a «typical» child, the positive aspects of this hospital may not be noticeable. For us, with a special needs kid, it was. Plus, the benefits of the experience with pediatrics-​only staff are so critical.

When we first walked in, I thought this is going to be a great place. The receptionist who checked us in was rude and unfriendly. Totally ruined the visit. The wait time was very minimal and my son’s doctor very informative. We loved her. Too bad the check in was less then pleasant.

At work I raised about $ 1200.00 through customer donations for Children’s Miracle Network this year for Children’s Hospital. In years past I never asked customers to donate because nine times out of ten they were in a bad mood and ready to hit you in the face just by saying «Hi» so usually asking for donations was not an option. This year I got into it just with regular asking and no pressuring. Sometimes customers did act like they wanted to hit you but depending what your strategy is it really pays off in the end!
As a reward or acknowledgment for the donations that my coworkers and I raised we got to tour parts of Children’s Hospital and it was really a great facility! They have great rooms for patients where their emphasis is for the patient to always have a window to look outside with which I thought was really cool because many hospitals do not have that set up that way. From what I understand from the tour guide having a bright, sunny window has been proven to help patients get better faster! There are various rooms specifying certain activities that children can enjoy like a movie theater which I thought was very impressive!
You can’t miss the Lego rendition of the entire hospital grounds either! That is something to see!
In emergencies Children’s can also care for adults. After the shooting that happened this past summer here in Aurora where James Holmes fired into an audience watching the last installment to the latest Batman franchise, several adult patients were taken to Children’s and were treated there. So the hospital is well equipped to care for adults too!
After our tour concluded we went to the cafeteria and I was impressed with what they had to offer! They had all kinds of food to choose from like pizza, spaghetti and a salad bar for example. We then dined in the brightly colored dining area which sparked cheer.
Obviously my experience with Children’s Hospital was different than most of the other people that wrote about the facility since they were in the role of patients or parents of patients. I don’t know of any bureaucratic obstacles that may arise here as far as paying medical bills or what have you. From our hostess I understood that no child is turned away from care here and if the patient’s parents can’t pay the medical bills then they have some kind of «flex» spending account where the costs can be paid. I can only speak from what I was told and discuss this in a conceptual basis since I was not in the shoes of parent or patient with my experience here. All I can say is wow! So many wonderful resources at their disposal here to help kids! Really amazing!

I had to bring my son here approximately 5 times for one thing that needed to be taken care of. The first visit was pretty routine, although it was kind of a surprise to be surrounded with about 7 doctors who looked at the issue to determine whose field it would fall under.
My son then had an MRI, a biopsy, and a surgery. For the MRI, he was 3 weeks shy of being a year old. They usually don’t let parents in while they are being sedated if the kiddo is not a year old. They let us in, which I really appreciated. The biopsy and surgery went well, and we were allowed back with him as soon as he was done for both. I wasn’t a big fan of the surgeon’s bedside manner, but his fellow was a lot better. We appreciated the fact that there are monitors in the waiting room which give updates on your child’s progress (using assigned numbers versus names) so if you have to wait a while, there’s something to watch out for. His follow-​up appointment was without incident and my son enjoyed the toys and stuff in the waiting room (both outside and inside the room).
The cafeteria has pretty decent food, although the place can be confusing when it’s really busy and full of people. Overall, the hospital is clean and well suited for kids. On a financial note, they will work with you to take payments on what your insurance doesn’t cover. Our payment is affordable and the staff who works that department is nice to deal with. If we have to take our kids in for things our doctor can’t/won’t do, we will come back without hesitation, even if it’s a solid half hour drive.