Dr. Pannel L Carr, MD

I was a patient of Dr. Carr's for over a year. Originally, I picked Dr. Novak as my primary physician since he belonged to my insurance's network. However, Dr. Novak was not available when I scheduled my 1st appointment. It was urgent, so the office staff told me to see Dr. Carr instead. At first I didn't want to, but they assured me there would be no problems with the insurance since Dr. Carr is billed under Dr. Novak. During the first appointment, I thought Dr. Carr was a good Doctor. My only complaint was that the wait was always long, and Dr. Carr always seemed to be in a rush. It's frustrating when you wait for over 30 minutes to see the doctor, then when you see her, she barely have time for 2 questions! Anyways, that was my only complaint at the time, and since I figure most doctors and medical offices are probably like that, I decided to continue seeing her since I hated to switch doctors. Everything was okay with the insurance for about a year. Then one day I received a… bill from Dr. Carr's office saying my insurance didn't pay for a previous appointment so I had to. I called my insurance and they said they didn't pay because it was billed under Dr. Carr, who was not my primary (Dr. Novak was my primary). I called Dr. Carr's office and they told me Dr. Carr had just sign with my insurance and is now billing under her own name. They said other patients have been having the same problem with their insurance for the past month or two and there is nothing they can do. I said if they've been having this problem for so long how come they didn't tell me so I could switch my primary to Dr. Carr or at least go back to Dr. Novak so I wouldn't have this problem? Finally, after many phone calls, the office manager said it would be up to Dr. Carr. So I talked to Dr. Carr, and she told me if I don't pay then she won't see me again. She didn't care that it was the office who assured me that they'd bill her under Doctor Novak, that it was the office who failed to inform me when they changed the billing to her name, and that they continued to neglect to notify me even after the other patients started having payment issues with the insurance way before I saw the doctor. They could have prevented all that, yet they didn't, and now they expected me to pay. But she didn't care about all that. All she cared about was the $55. I felt very upset and disappointed with her respond. I should have changed doctor right away. But because she was close to my house and I was adverse to changing doctors, I made the mistake of giving in and paid the bill. But it was for nothing. Because I received a letter from her office shortly after, informing me that she was not going to work as an internal medicine doctor anymore. That she had switched over to being a fulltime psychologist at her new office! I felt misled! I'm sure it took her at least a few months to lease and set-up the new office before it could be open for business, which meant that she had known for a long time she wasn't going to be my doctor much longer. But because she knew I hated change, especially when it comes to changing doctors, she used that to threaten me and got me to pay her - all the while knowing that she probably won't be seeing me anymore, whether I paid or not. I have nothing but disgust for her. I don't know how much $55 meant to her. But to me it was 2 weeks' worth of food! I hope money buys her happiness. For every drop of sweat, for every food I couldn't get my daughter, and for every minute my daughter had to sleep without me so I can make that $55, I hope she'll pay 10 times over!!!