Highline Medical Group

Like others, I was stuck on a Holiday needing to see a doctor. I would not recommend this place, unless you are desparate and there is nothing else open. The facility fee is a total rip off, and you pay it in addition to what your insurance pays for your visit. Nice system they have, being able to take advangate of people, and get paid from insurance and get another payment from you.

As I sit here waiting for the doctor to see my daughter for a possible broken wrist, I’m wondering why, when there was only one person ahead of us, we are still in lobby an hour later.
Since there are three nice ladies up at the front desk who are chatting about overtime, I assume they are well staffed.
After 1 hour and 10 min we are now in a room. I call it waiting room 2.0.
I hope to G@D this place has an X-​ray machine.
So far… meh.
I should say the place is clean. Trying to be upbeat.
1:45 min. Still in second room. 24 tiles on the ceiling. Very thankful my daughter is being a trooper. I got a little pissy with the welcoming committee. That’s probably going to slow things down.
Sign on the wall says «Your flu shot is waiting.» I know how it feels.
Final update. Went to 3 stars as the physicians assistant was very knowledgable and quick. At this point quick is huge for me.

I absolutely love this clinic. Dr Katherine Hoang is by far the best doctor I have ever been to. She is very thorough and truly cares about her patients. She remembers things about my personal life which shows she cares about my whole health! I recommend her to everyone and everyone I recommend her to is happy with her.

I was so happy three or so weeks ago to see that Highline Medical Urgent Care was open Sunday nights until 5pm. It was 4:30pm and my four year old daughter’s eyes were getting more and more infected. I knew she had a bad eye infection and needed eye drops in order to sleep. We were at the front desk of urgent care at 4:43pm. No one was waiting in the waiting room. The receptionist asked if we were patients of Highline. I said we’d been to the old urgent care location a couple of years ago with my son but otherwise were not patients. She said she’d be right back. Upon returning, she informed us the doctor could not see my daugther. Things were backed up due to a laceration and that we’d have to go somewhere else. I was SHOCKED! This was a walk-​in urgent care clinic open until 5pm and we were being turned away at 4:43pm! This was supposed to be the neighborhood facility tending to the West Seattle community, yet they were turning patients/​children away during business hours! To try to understand, I asked if it would be any different should my daughter have had a laceration or something of a more emergent medical nature. She said in that case they would probably assess/​control the situation and call an ambulance or some other care unit to transport her elsewhere. Suffice it to say, we left and called around to find Doctors Express on lower Queen Anne which is open until 8pm on Sunday evenings. I asked if they turn people away depending upon what time they come in and what’s going on in back. She said absolutely not — they will take people until 7:59pm, regardless of the circumstances. Please be aware.

Worst experience ever. Automatically highline is known for all their stupid lab work. So right off the back they want to make more money and do lab work. Then when you ask them technical questions they can’t answer they give you a ‘deer-​in-​the-​headlights’ expression and leave the room to go look up the info on web md. When the lady (not a dr, a nurse practioner) wanted to see my abrasion on my leg she had me pull my pants down didn’t give me a robe then had me sitting there waiting with my pants down while she walked out of the room! Now I can look forward to a huge bill in the mail and no problem solved. Just stay home and do it yourself. You will save a lot of money and time and you will probably get better results!

I agree with whoever said that their billing dept is a nightmare. I gave them my new insurance information THREE TIMES: filled out paperwork twice because they said they lost it the first time (oh really? That’s just great!) and faxed in ANOTHER copy of my cards because they said they couldn’t find the first ones. After all that, they STILL billed it to the wrong insurance company. They also billed me for preventative which is 100% covered by my insurance.
Dr. Hoang is nice and I liked her. She seemed sympathetic and concerned, but the front staff is a nightmare. I came in early one morning for blood work (there was no one else there except one other lady). We sat there for almost 30 minutes while the receptionists complained about other co-​workers not chipping into the coffee fund. Finally, the other lady got up and yelled at the receptionists to see what was going on. They gave her attitude, but got her in while I waited another 10 minutes before I got fed up as well. They got me into the nurse, she drew a little blood and exactly 2 minutes later, I was out the door.
A couple of days later, I had to call the office with a question. The first girl who answered asked if I could hold. I said: ok. A couple of minutes later, another girl got on the phone and said: this is so-​and-​so. Before I even asked my question, she cut me off and said: please hold. Five more minutes later, another girl got on the phone. When I finally was able to ask my question, she told me that she couldn’t answer it and immediately put me on hold. I held for another five minutes, but by that time I was so annoyed, I just hung up.

WARNING!!!
There’s a $ 100 «facility fee» for walking in the door — this is not covered by most insurance providers, even if they claim to take your insurance!
One of the forms they make you sign before they will see you allows them to double bill you. The form you fill out authorizes them to bill you directly for the facility fee in addition to anything you’d owe via your insurance company. The $ 100 ripoff fee does not even count towards your deductible — it will end up being paid directly to the clinic.
If you don’t want to be scammed out of your money, don’t go here!

I live right across the street from this clinic and when I saw that they were open early and late, I thought to myself, «Awesome, when I need care for my family outside of normal business hours, this will be a great alternative to the emergency room.»
The first time I used them was last month. I was a little irritated about the $ 125 deposit but I was willing to pay it so I could get seen at 7am and back to work by 7:30. I saw Dr. Marty and he was ok, but kinda full of himself, and he did say some personally offensive things to me about my career and my assumed income. I didn’t really see his point and felt he was very rude. After he confirmed my illness and prescribed antibiotics he told me he’d like to send samples to the lab for further testing in case the antibiotics didn’t work and I came back in a few days later, it would already be taken care of? Not really thinking about why, I said yes… unfortunately I just got a $ 200 bill for a panel of unnecessary lab work that my insurance didn’t cover?
I went in again recently and saw Dr. Annemarie Correa. My regular dr couldn’t get me in after hours. I was very clear about what I wanted when I called the office staff to set up an appointment. After a urine test (that I didn’t even want) came back negative for pregnancy, she asked who my regular dr was, and suggested I go back to her for a blood test… the ONLY thing I was requesting that Highline medical clinic do for me from the beginning. I told her that I had spotting a few days a go and wondered if maybe the hcg (pregnancy hormone) had not had time to build up enough yet to show positive after implantation. She told me that the hcg is produced as soon as conception and I told her that everything I had read said it started at implantation. She told me that what I read was wrong.
Well, my regular doctor told me later that SHE was wrong… it does begin at implantation. She was rude and talked down to me.
I will not be going back to them again, after hours or not. I plan to go here instead:
They are open for drop-​ins in the evenings, they don’t charge a $ 125 deposit and Dr. Harrington is well respected and recommended by my regular physician.

After reading all of the awful reviews of this place, I was really reluctant to go in here. I tried to get appointments in at least three other offices before resigning myself to get urgent care here.
The place was clean, parking was easy, and the reception staff was friendly and helpful.
I know that so much of it is the luck of the draw, but my doctor was amazing. Absolutely the best physician I’ve ever worked with. Marty had incredible bedside manner – he was funny, explained things clearly, and was incredibly knowledgeable and thorough.
I can see why people complain about the cost, though. My insurance cards for my new plan haven’t yet come, so I was processed as an unisured patient. There’s the $ 125 upfront fee, plus the cost of the appointment and the labs. If my insurance didn’t cover it, I’d be out more than $ 400. The cost is a little ridiculous, so I’m glad my insurance will eventually cover the cost!
They also treat patients on a non-​urgent basis, so I will be making this my permanent doctor’s office.

I had just moved to Seattle and my health insurance hadn’t started yet, so, I went to the Urgent care without any insurance. I got there and the place was empty, but, very clean. A nice change to most urgent cares I have seen. I was told that I had to pay a $ 125 fee but was told there may be other charges based on what I get done. This was basically to be seen. I was oK with that as it was in line with what I had paid before when I had gone to other urgent cares. I was seen very quickly. I knew exactly what my issue was, but, they had to go through the motions to make sure. At any rate, I got my prescription and was on my way within an hour.
So, a few weeks after my appointment I get a bill for $ 91.40. Then, a few weeks after that I get another bill for $ 151.36. I about keeled over when I received these two bills. I paid the first one, but didn’t pay the second as I thought maybe it was a mistake. After a few months I decide I should call to get to the bottom of the bill since it wasn’t going away. The guy on the phone couldn’t really tell me what the bill was for exactly. Something along the lines of a handling fee for my visit or some other bullsh*t.
Long story short, what should have only cost me $ 125 ended up costing me $ 367.76. Complete RIP OFF. While their service was fine, this debacle of having to pay almost $ 400 is a joke.

The doctors here are very good. Very nice. So why a one star rating? The billing here is bad. I mean epic bad.
My family members have visited this clinic 4 times. All 4 visits were incorrectly billed. The staff took photo copies of our insurance cards at each visit yet still somehow they managed to bill the wrong insurance company. Four times. How is that even possible?
We had to call and argue with the less than helpful billing dept to get them to resubmit the billing to the correct insurance each and every time. Seriously how can you have a photo copy still bill the wrong insurance then argue about correcting your mistake?
Yesterday I got a bill for an office visit. I hadn’t been to this clinic in a awhile so it caught me off guard. I open the bill and it’s for an office visit on a date when I was out of the country. I was literally on the other side of the planet on the date they claim I was making an office visit. Oh and they billed the incorrect insurance company for a fifth time. For the office visit that never happened.
If this is how they handle billing — 100% wrong, 100% of the time — imagine how they handle your medical records.

Somethings didn’t add up. I have awesome insurance. Apparently, before you can be seen you have to provide $ 150 co-​pay and then once they bill your insurance you should get a refund. Unfortunately, this is not the case if you have Blue Cross Blue Shield! Although urgent care is covered whatever codes they use are not. I called to inquiry and they said I signed the form and I was responsible. Right… with a 103 fever and no food or water for 3 days? Give me a break. In the end I would have been better off in the ER. It would have been cheaper and I can imagine my care would have been much better. For literally, 5 minutes with the provider, rude front office staff and $ 150 later I would not suggest this to anyone. Either wait to get in with your regular doc or head straight to the ER.

If you are a NEW patient WITH insurance you must pay a $ 150 «Down Payment» in order to be seen. However, if you have MEDICAID and are in their Zip Code, no «Down Payment» is required.
The only reason I can think of to have a Financial Policy like this is they are either wanting the cash or they are too lazy to call into the insurance company to verify coverage.
What a crappy way to do people who are sick or hurt. Sounds more like an Emergency Vet you’d take your dog or cat to rather than a doctor’s office meant for humans!
Source:
(check out the very top of the second page)

Let me start off by saying dr. Houng is a really good dr. I’ve seen dr. Marty before and he was a nice dr. as well.
My problem with this place is the receptionists, there is only like one nice older lady there and the rest are always rude. They are never nice unless you don’t have a question, they are very rude when you have a prescription refill request or question, one time I was told by one receptionists that «it was against the law for them to refill one of the prescriptions without a follow up», so then I ask «why have I had it refilled 3 times before I talked to you?» And sorry if I’m new to this but logically it makes no sense for the whole staff up front to take lunch all at the same time, so if you need to talk to someone in that hour, you’ll have to remember to call back… Because I guess clients don’t matter.
This is a nice doctors office but it would be allot better if the receptionist actually seemed liked they cared to talk to you, or even cared about working there. And this isn’t something new, I’m just irritated that I feel I should start looking at other doctor offices just because the receptionists are horrible. I mean think about it. I would give more stars, to give the doctors credit, but the receptionists ruin it.

So far, so good.
Over the weekend I celebrated Mother’s Day by ripping one of my toenails off (friggin cats — never try to step over one — it won’t turn out well). I stumbled over said critter and caught my middle right toe on the heat transom.
I didn’t even know it had ripped off until I looked down and saw blood. Lots of it. All over.
In a panic my room mate called her mother to find out what to do (yes, we still call mama when we have some major problem — bleeding all over, needless to say, can be a major problem). While mom was on the line telling roomie that I should put sugar on it (ack), I was on the phone with 24-​nurse getting an urgent care location.
This was it.
When I called the receptionist was very sympathetic — I could HEAR her wince on the phone. She advised to get in immediately and she would work me in. I happened to be the first patient of the day hobbling in — they saw me within 5 minutes. The doctor (I forget his name now) was sympathetic almost to a fault. I had to tell him it was ok to apply pressure to stop the bleeding since I could hardly feel it.
Needless to say, the urgent care impressed me enough to check out a primary doc.
I’ve been in to Jeanne Olson now to check on the toe (it’s infected — blah) and she actually took the time to not only talk about that but my son as well. She will probably be his primary doctor now due to all of this.
I was impressed by the efficiency (I DID have to wait the typical 15 minutes after getting into the room but I was zonked on vicodin and got a nice little nap) and the pleasant attitude of the staff. They may not know me yet but I get the feeling that they know all of their regular patients.