Sleep Medicine Associates Of Texas

TL;DR: I waited 3 months for an appointment at this Sleep Center, did absolutely everything I was supposed to, and when I arrived at my appointment I was turned away without seeing a doctor because of completely incompetent office staff. They made no attempt whatsoever to reschedule and they’ve now wasted 3 months of my life that I could have been working with another doctor to cure my debilitating sleep disorder.
When my doctor referred me to Sleep Medicine Associates for my increasingly severe, so far untreatable sleep disorder in November of 2015, she told me that they would follow up in a few days about an appointment. They never called. So a week later, I followed up with them (I had to call several times, I was hung up on the first time) and they told me, after falsely claiming that they already contacted me to set up an appointment, that the earliest they could see me was in 3 MONTHS. This sounded absurd to me, but my doctor told me that this was my best option so I decided to wait. My partner and I filled out and submitted all of the required forms and questionnaires in the meantime.
My appointment was this morning at 8:00 a.m. I received a call 2 days ago confirming (normal). I took a half day off of work during an EXTREMELY busy time, drove from Denton to Dallas at 6:00 a.m. to beat traffic and arrived at the office half an hour before they opened. I filled out all of the new patient forms and handed them back to the nurse, at which point she told me that my doctor had not submitted an insurance referral and I would have to fill out a waiver that would allow the office to charge me $ 200 just to be seen. When I asked why I hadn’t been notified of this at any point during the three month «waiting period,» she went to get another nurse.
This new nurse first informed me that they had attempted to get the referral but had no response from my doctor. When I asked again why I hadn’t been notified, she changed her story. Now she claimed that the office was «just so busy» and «because of the new year change-​over» they now ask for insurance referrals from the PCP on the day of the appointment, which makes absolutely no sense. It also made it clear that they had never asked my PCP for an insurance referral before I showed up for the appointment. I needed to see a doctor today, so I signed the ridiculous form allowing the office to charge me $ 200. I needed to see somebody just that badly.
A nurse, or office staff member, called me to the back. However, she was not there to take my blood pressure. She was there to tell me that she was so, so sorry, but it was now «past my time» and I could not be seen by a doctor today. She explained that the office just has an overwhelming number of patients and they simply couldn’t fit me in that morning, despite the fact that I’d been waiting since 7:30 a.m. She also couldn’t give me any sort of time frame for when an appointment could be rescheduled, but said somebody would be in touch. If somebody didn’t contact me by 4:00 p.m., I should contact them.
I drove back to Denton, and I will not be contacting Sleep Medicine Associates ever again. I do not trust an office that is this incompetent and negligent to provide any sort of decent care. Under no circumstances would I ever recommend Sleep Medicine Associates to anyone.

Quite an efficient office — the wait to get in is like any other good specialist so my expectations were high to begin with and were met. Now I just have to play the insurance game which they are also good at!

Other than having to wait two months to be seen, this group is a great group of physicians that are dedicated to helping you sleep better. They are straight forward with their approach. Everyone on their staff is very friendly. If it were not for the ridiculously long wait to be seen in their clinic I would have given them a higher rating.