Dr. Ravi Aloor was scheduled to perform non-cosmetic surgery on my spouse to treat a painful, chronic skin condition, three days before the surgery with no explanation. She had several office visits with Dr. Aloor with whom she consulted and completed pre-operation check-ups, for which he accepted our standard medical insurance co-pays. He's an in-network doctor under our medical insurance plan, contracted with our insurance company to provide care covered under the plan. During her final pre-op visit, his wife, who manages his office, demanded full payment of the doctor's surgery fee, out of pocket, and refused to agree to bill our insurance plan. Their reason was that they will only accept insurance cards with the name of the person being treated listed on the card. My insurance company, as is common, only prints cards in the name of the primary insured party, but our card clearly indicates that we have a family plan. The doctor's wife refused to allow her to see the doctor for her scheduled appointment until she paid this fee out of pocket and threatened to cancel her surgery if she did not make that payment. She complied out of fear of not receiving the surgery for her painful condition.

Our insurance company called the doctor's wife, Priya, and confirmed both my spouse's coverage on our plan, and threatened again to cancel the surgery if the insurance company sought to interfere with their billing practices. Priya stated that they have an office policy of never accepting an insurance card without the patient's name on it, despite the insurance company explaining they do not print PPO plan cards with all family members listed on their cards, and again confirmed coverage for my wife as well as coverage for the scheduled surgery. The doctor's office refuses to refund the funds charged to our credit card for this surgery nor has it refunded the co-pays paid to date for office visits despite abandoning care of my wife suddenly. Having charged our credit card and refusing to bill our insurance company as an in-network providers is fraud.

My spouse was taken off of antibiotics for 6+ in preparation for her surgery, causing large, open wounds to expand on her skin, causing infection to enter those open wounds, which the antibiotics had helped treat. The doctor's office has not offered to reschedule the surgery not offered a referral to another doctor who can perform this surgery. To the best of our knowledge, no other in-network doctor in the area does this surgery.

I do not recommend accepting care from Dr. Aloor due to our experience, which is not an acceptable standard of care nor a legal standard of care. I believe the actions of Dr. Aloor's office are based in homophobia as the threats to cancel her surgery and refusing her insurance card only started after I went to one of her pre-op appointments so I could hear what type of care/help she would need after her surgery to recover.

Submitted Nov. 29, 2022

excellent and very kind physician.

Submitted Dec. 3, 2009