Brandt Therapy Clinics

She ditches her clients with no shows, no calls for appointments. Like another person said, we should be paid for our time taken off and commuting for her missed appointments.

She made it sound very inconvenient when trying to call her to find out if she was even going to show up to the appointment.

And she is still charging our insurance for claims. Ridiculous!

Out of 7 scheduled appointments Brandt canceled 5 of them. All of the cancelations were made with a text message and 3 appointments were merely hours before our scheduled time.

Time had been taken off from work either with no pay or a vacation day to go see her. If anything she needs to pay me back for the unpaid time I had taken off from work. I have heard the same thing form one person that was seeing her. I had an appointment the same day as person "X", she canceled with them, gave her explanation which did coincide with the one she gave me.

So therefore she also lies to her clients. I liked her tactics but she is not worth the effort.

I have been to Brandt on 2 occasions. Once I received my invoice for the first few months, I saw I had been overbilled by $500. I compared my bank account to the invoice to my insurance claims, and my insurance was paying for my visits. Brandt was aware of this overbilling and if I hadn't have said anything, I would never have been refunded.

I dealt with another overbilling and waited over 4 months to be refunded. I was ignored as communication was nonexistent. Promises of "we will get back to you" were repeatedly broken. FINALLY I got my refund after I threatened to go to the Better Business Bureau.

Bottom line: Don't go here. If you do, watch your bill and keep an eye on your insurance claims.

The following message that I sent to Sara Brandt, Ph.D., MS, LMFT sums up our experience with her.

Message Sent 12-9-09:

Ms. Brandt,

As you know, yesterday, we received some wonderful correspondence from your associates, a collection agency. You know that we should not be responsible for your charges because they were made due to your lack of communication and your inability to run your practice efficiently. My husband called you today and tried to reason with you, but you are not to be reasoned with and you want that money so desperately that you sicked a collection agency on us -- for less than 200!

I talked with you before I made my son's appointment. You were quite nice then. I discussed our insurance with you during that conversation and I told you who are providers are. You assured me that everything would be taken care of. Yes, you are out of network, but you should have contacted our insurance company to get the proper pre-authorizations. According to your website (below), your office handles the necessary pre-authorizations. If you were not able or willing to do so, you should have contacted me right away, yet you did not.

"Brandt Therapy Clinics has a full service Business Office and handles your insurance claims for you. Clients who wish to use insurance benefits simply submit their card to Brandt Therapy Clinics, Inc. at the first appointment. Brandt Therapy Clinics checks your benefits to determine your copayment and deductibles as quoted by your insurance company. We then submit claims for your office visits and charge only your copay or deductible as indicated by the insurance company."

Isn't it your practice to ask a new patient for an insurance card and to follow up? What happened in this case? We trusted your assertions that you have a professional practice, but you didn't do what you promised and you are now forcing us to pay for a bill that our insurance should have covered.

Regarding the extra "missed appointment" fee that you tacked on to the bill, you have to understand that if our son told us he did not make an appointment with you, of course we are going to believe him. You have presented no proof that he made an appointment.

You did not send us an invoice at any time, and we were unaware until we received the letter from the collections agency yesterday that our insurance had not been charged for the one visit. You also kindly added on the "missed appointment fee." If you'll recall, when we spoke on the phone the day that you said my son missed his appointment, I asked him and he said he had not made another appointment. When I relayed that to you, you became irate and you said you did not have the time for my son's "game-playing." In fact, after his one appointment with you, I asked him how it went, and he wasn't comfortable with you, so it's highly doubtful that he would have made another appointment. I think you must have assumed he would be making a second appointment. That seems far more likely now that we know you a little better. I shudder to think that you counsel people and you can impact their lives.

So, you have this in writing. You will get your money in the next week -- not because we owe it to you, but because we are hard working, honest people who have worked for so long to build up excellent credit, and you are extorting us into paying this money to you with your threats of collections.

You have your promise of payment. Call off your collection company or you will be in violation of the law. Do not contact us again.

I am legally within my rights to post this text to every health provider review site I can find to recount my experience with and opinion of your practice. You can fight honest customers with threats but I can counter with the truth.

Good luck with your customer base and Happy Holidays.