Digital Medical Imaging

The front desk staff was very friendly and professional. I expected to have a copay, and I paid upfront. The amount was not much, since I had been to another office across the way that charged three times as much. The Technician, was horrible. She was rude, she was frustrated and impatient. She is rather young and had a horrible know it all attitude, and after explaining my specific situation, she decided she knew more than my doctor and nurse practitioner. She scolded me about not drinking enough water, when no one at that office had contacted me with any information regarding preparation. I had my ultrasound here, but will not return. The thing is that for some reason, medical workers, doctors, technicians, or nurses in California seem to think that they are doing you a favor, when in fact, WE are doing them a favor by paying our insurance which pays them. I have never seen such a level of arrogance from medical staff like I have in Santa Maria, California. I have lived in three different states, and Utah is by far the best in medical care and patient treatment.

Someone in oversight needs to inform this medical facility that it cannot demand full estimated payments in advance of treatment. Until patients receive care, front offices cannot know for sure what in total they will be billing specific patients for. That’s why patients make payments on the way Out, After they’ve been seen, at the End of their appointments.
It is against the law to make patients pay anything without first providing in writing a total of the estimated cost, what it is for, and how much of it they will owe; or what care they actually received and how much they do owe.
It is against the law to keep a copy of patients’ credit card information on file in their offices. Well, they can keep partial information, but they are not allowed to keep all of it, specifically the security code. If they’ve recorded your credit card information to keep on file with that info, report them. You know they have if they don’t have to ask you for the security code and expiration date every time they process a payment.
And people, don’t provide all of your private information! They have no right to your credit card for permanent storage, your driver’s license number, or your social security number! All they need is your name, birth date, and medical insurance ID number. They cannot deny you treatment if you don’t provide those other pieces of information. If they do, walk out and report them! Report them to both the state and to your insurance company. By the way, they shouldn’t be getting all that info from you online and keeping it anymore than they should at the imaging facility.
Everyone who’s been faced with demands of payments before receiving care and without being provided a written estimate of or the actual services and your cost should join us in reporting them to the state of CA and your insurance companies.
Furthermore, this facility really shouldn’t be demanding any payments at all before insurance-​processing until it gets its act together. Its billing office and process are messed up.
First, Digital Medical Imaging (DMI) is owned by Pueblo Radiology Medical Group (PRMG). That’s who bills *us* anyway, although once it was some group out of Louisiana. Despite our going to the same facility each time, on insurance EOBs there are different entities listed for receiving payments. Who are we actually giving our business to? We have no idea. At this juncture, I’m assuming it is PRMG because that is who I last paid.
Second, there are frequent billing problems. For our very first visit, the billing office did not submit a clean claim, meaning it submitted a claim with mistakes to the insurance company, so the claim was denied as out-​of-​network. We paid almost $ 300.00 to PRMG only to discover DMI *is* in our network. The payment was not applied to our in-​network deductible and we were out almost $ 300.00. Fixing the problem is an added bureaucratic hassle, requiring working with both the insurance plan and trying to get a refund from PRMG, because how the insurance plan handled it was to send a payment to PRMG even though we’d already paid them the full amount months ago!
There have been other billing problems due to the billing office submitting unclean claims. Also, we receive bills after we’ve paid-​in-​full, which is confusing and now we are overpaid. Additionally, on one EOB, a claim was either resubmitted or just reprocessed for some reason without recording that it was. I have one EOB that says our co-​payment was one amount, and another EOB for a later processing date, showing we owe a higher co-​payment than is listed on the first.
Now, I don’t know if that was due to action on the part of PRMG or the insurance company (both screw up on a regular basis), because with the insurance company, there is no record of the EOB change. The only reason I know someone did that is because I’d printed out the first one from my online account and when I went back later, it was changed. There is supposed to be a record of every processing of each claim so patients can see where changes were made and why, but in this case, the first has mysteriously disappeared. Again, I don’t know that it is because of DMI/​PRMG versus the insurance company’s claims processor, but since DMI/​PRMG has problems getting its claims submitted correctly, the issue is included in this review.
Finally, the last visit to DMI required an MRI. The claustrophobic patient was told an open MRI machine would be used, but it wasn’t. The patient was not a happy camper and came home feeling concern that patient care was lacking.

My appointment was at 12:45 and they have a sign that says to be here 15 mins before, so i get here 15 mins before and the front desk tells me im too early, so I wait and its been 15 past my appointment! The wait is forever.
P.s do not show up 15 to 20 mins late because there is a late fee, but they call you in late either way? (Not like its packed in here to begin with it is pretty empty)

Very friendly staff, made me feel very comfortable when getting my x-​rays done here. The facility itself is clean and welcoming. I have also not had a problem with them faxing over all my reports to my Doctor

Check in was good. The front desk girl was friendly. Good timing to be seen,
(granted I arrived early)
I was a little concerned about having an MRI with contrast done, but was quickly put at ease. All the nurses greeted the waiting room, the assistant was personable, friendly and explained the procedure thoroughly. Then the one who did the injection was even more thorough. When it came time for the MRI the tech checked on me several times.

I’m going to use a Ghostbusters metaphor with this review.
After making an appointment you receive an email from the Gatekeeper. This email tells you that it’s important for you to register for their medical data-​mining partner. They’re doing us such a favor by creating our own online medical record that they can share with insurance agencies, marketing partners, or their Ukrainian hackers. Oh, sorry. That last part would NEVER happen! There was no way I was going to sign up for this so I just ignored the email. It had no impact on my appointment. Zero stars for this.
When you arrive, you encounter the Keymaster. There’s no getting past the DMV-​esque waiting room without paying in full whatever they believe that you will owe. Here’s the problem that I have with this. They REFUSED to give me a printout of the services they would be providing me and the cost of those services. When I am billed for a medical service, I like to attach the invoice to my insurance company’s benefits statement. I always make them match up because medical billing offices are run by drunk, retarded hyenas and they often make mistakes. Radiology Associates will not ever send you an invoice because they have already demanded that you pay up front. But at the same time, they have NO process for providing you with a printout of the services you’re going to receive and the costs of those services that you have to pay up front for. «We’re not allowed to tell you the discounted price we’ve contracted with your insurer.» Nonsense. Every medical bill I receive has a column for the charge and then a column for the insurer’s write-​off. That’s industry standard. Zero stars.
After paying up front every dollar of your potential co-​pay and deductible, you’ll finally get seen by the actual radiology techs. These folks are the Annie Potts of this metaphor. Adorable, kind, competent. They were absolutely 5 star.
My appointment was yesterday afternoon and I’ve already been spammed twice by the Gatekeeper, insisting that I register and provide all of my most private credit and medical information.
The owner of this facility (Gozer) clearly doesn’t mind letting the patients know that their mission statement is, «bleed those sheep, harvest that insurance — and take some x-​rays.»
Who’s the Ghostbuster in this metaphor? I don’t know. I suppose that would be me by writing this review. Okay, I didn’t think that part out enough…

This office is great. The girls are efficient and knowledgeable, and really helpful! One of the girls did what my Dr’s office wouldn’t and initiated an authorization request for my MRI and got it taken care of that same morning. State of the art equipment, and they drug you if you have issues like I do in small spaces. I highly recommend them for MRI tests and anything of that nature.

I went there for an X-​ray. Wow, the women at the front office were so unfriendly and rude. I refuse to go back. There are other places to go, go elsewhere.

The facility is well laid out, with ample seating in the waiting areas. I’ve been there twice for an MRI on my back. I’m a large guy, and need the Open machine they have at this Santa Maria facility. The second time, I was in a lot of pain and it looked like I was not going to be able to lie still thru the test. The technician who did my testing, Amber, is an angel. She was beyond patient, very understanding, and was able to help me get through the full process. The resultant slides helped my surgeon identify the cause of my pain. I’m very pleased with the staff and equipment at this facility. It was well worth the drive from Templeton.

The services performed were fine, however, they took over $ 200 on a co-​pay that should not have been collected and have not sent me a check. Very poor business practices that in my opinion are highly unethical as they have held my money for months!!! Demand an immediate accounting of your services if you have to go back for a follow up procedure!

The front office staff are pleasant, friendly and try their best to be helpful and accomodating. The technologists are professional and courteous. There’s plenty of parking and the big screen television in the waiting room is nice!