Stern Cardiovascular Foundation

Enjoy those FOUR hour appointments and wait times and unnecessary tests to over charge your insurance. Even after two other tests that proved I was "clear" they still wanted me to wear a heart monitor for a month; I wore it for one day and stopped. They didn't mind, but continued to bill my insurance. I learned this after getting a call from a collection agency. I tried to call Stern to try and rectify it, but had to leave a message and never heard back. Now my credit is dinged all because Stern wanted to gauge my insurance and add unnecessary tests and then not have the decency to contact me directly. If you go to this place, it's your own fault.

Yesterday I had a nuclear stress test. I want to say every person who was involved in my tests from my echocardiogram, to my treadmill ride, and all my picture taking while lying on the table were the BEST ever! They were kind, patient and so very professional! You made the morning for me! Thanks so much!

If you value your health, avoid this place. I spent over 90 days trying to get a heart failure medication authorized--calling weekly, chasing updates, and getting nowhere. After filing a complaint, they fired me as a patient. That's not care, that's retaliation. I've worked in healthcare for 30 years and never seen anything so disgraceful. Stern failed me, and they'll fail others too.

Stern Cardiovascular doesn't take my insurace. I suffer severe dizziness caused by POTS. My Dr. had referred me to this physicialty. The nurse told me my insurance was out of Network but for $150.00 I could see the Dr, he could advise me and if test were needed the hospital takes my insurance. I went ahead and scheduled my appointment saw the very nice people, guess what the Dr can't help me due to the fact I'm out of network and there are no other Doctors they are aware of that can do the Tilt table test. Total waste of $150.00, my time and gas. Then a few days later I receive another bill for $150.00. I ignore it after all the nurse that booked my appointment said its worth $150.00 to get to the root of my problem. Not the case they want $300.00 for no answers and wasting my time. The second $150.00 was for the Dr and his staff. Don't wanst your time or money here. I have no answers and I'm out $300.00. They DON"T CARE!!! I did take it to a supervisor. She was sorry I feel this way!

I was told that for my 30 day activity monitor it would be my responsibility to contact Zio Heart Monitors and coordinate permission for Stern using their device on my body. This is an absolutely ludicrous expectation for the patient. They literally handed me a post-it note at discharge with a 1-800 number and it said "Zio Heart Monitors". Why is the patient calling a medical device vendor?!?! This makes absolutely no sense. When I raised this concern with staff, they treated me like an absolute nuisance. They gave me 2 CPT codes for the ultrasounds they recommended and informed me I would need to call my insurer to coordinate pricing. The Stern employee looked at me like I was a death row inmate when I began telling him how absurd I thought this was. He had no reasonable explanation, just a feeble and spineless reiteration that "this is the way the system is." After spending 90 minutes on the phone with the Ambetter of Tennessee call center in Sri Lanka, my insurer could not identify the CPT codes Stern gave me, so they initiated a three way call with Stern Cardiology who could not transfer them to the proper staff. So basically this was a giant waste of time and Stern refused to acknowledge that they inconvenienced me whatsoever. They defiantly insisted that this was simple, reasonable protocol and had absolutely no sympathy for my anger or my complaint. I wasted my entire day, a 90 dollar copay, and suffered extreme anxiety dealing with the administration staff. When I complained to them, they told me that the volume of their business is so great that these errors should be excused, which naturally only infuriated me more. The angrier I became, the less it appeared they were willing to assist me, despite the fact that their obtuse bureaucracy was the entire reason I was upset to begin with. As it seems, Stern is practiced in the art of gaslighting patients. They present you with minor care that doesn't address the issues, and then subject you to a frustrating bureaucratic process simply to get pricing for common procedures like ultrasounds. And if you take any umbrage with this, the implication is that you are either unreasonable or a nuisance. This is terrible customer service. If I'm doing all this clerical work, what am I paying premiums and copays for? You have an entire office of people and you can't coordinate pricing for an ultrasound with an insurance provider? You can't call the heart monitor vendor, but instead insist the patient do so? This is completely inexcusable. The onus on the patient was absurd and the staff was cold and acted as if I was completely insane when I explained how obtuse and exasperating this is. They simply kept reiterating that I should calm down, and that I should have more sympathy for how hard their jobs are because they "deal with 2000 insurance companies" and "we see over 400 patients a day" etc. Like.. why is the customer service representative complaining to me about how hard her job is? How is that acceptable? Either offer me satisfaction or transfer me to someone who can. I'm not on the phone to hear a sob story from the enterprise that cheated and abused me. Quite frankly, this place made me feel like I wasn't worth treating. The administration looked at me like human trash and the doctor saw me for all of five minutes. It's just a bunch of PAs and people with communication degrees clustered in a big office not really doing much actual work. They just push paper and transfer calls and apparently make the patient do all the clerical work for them. It's honestly kind of hilarious how pathetic their service is. Anyway, avoid this place if you hate obtuse, bureaucratic nonsense. If you make six figures a year, I'm sure you can throw money at them until you get what you want, but if you're a normal working class American, forget about being treated with dignity here.