Athena Diagnostics, Inc.

My experience with Athena has been terrible. I checked to make sure the Athena DNA tests would be covered by my insurance and checked with Athena to make sure the tests would be no more than a normal deductible even though Athena is out of my insurance network. I was told the max anyone pays is $800 for the tests even if there was a problem. Even though the testing codes were approved by my insurance, my insurance did not pay because the coding was wrong. Athena then invoiced me $6000. Insurance can't help because they are out-of-network. Not only that, the results were not helpful. This has been a nightmare. Athena also refused to send anything in writing before the test to confirm cost and no one has a last name to be accountable for any conversation.

Lab work done on my child in January 2012 wasn't invoiced to me until December 2013. By this time, the claim was out of network and of course I cannot use any Medical Flexible Spending account. As a result, the routine blood work which normally costs $90 was billed at the companies inflated rate of $2, 075. Without a phone call they realized what happened and credited my account $311 - which left me with a $1, 700 invoice! No matter what level of management spoken, everyone understood the problem but told me there is nothing we can do (which is totally false since the margin on such a test is roughly 1200%).