KAUKAUNA — A Kaukauna woman says she was surprised by an unexpected medical bill after visiting what she thought was an urgent care facility at Aurora BayCare Health Center.
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Lindsay Kalsow said she was seeking urgent care for a sore throat earlier this month when she found the Aurora facility in Kaukauna.
"I just wanted to find the closest urgent care, which ended up being Aurora," Kalsow said.
The clinic initially billed her about $150, which she paid immediately. But a few days later, she received an additional bill for nearly $600.
"It just felt like false advertising. I was so upset," Kalsow said.
After calling her insurance company, Kalsow discovered that Aurora doesn't bill visits as urgent care. Instead, the facility bills visits as doctor's office visits, which can result in higher costs for patients.
According to Aurora Health Care's website, "Urgent care is a service of Aurora clinics. Your urgent care visit will be billed as a physician's office visit – not an urgent care visit."
Kalsow said she doesn't understand why the sign in front of the building advertises urgent care while the billing policy treats visits differently.
"I just wish they would use different verbiage because it's just so easy to get this wrong, and I would have avoided it if I had known," Kalsow said.
Other neighbors have experienced similar confusion with Aurora's billing practices.
NBC26 reached out to Aurora Health for comment on this billing confusion. As of Wednesday afternoon, they have not responded.
