Complaints

This profile includes complaints for Aspen Medical Center's headquarters and its corporate-owned locations. To view all corporate locations, see Find Local Branches.

close

Find a Location

Aspen Medical Center has 2 locations, listed below.

*This company may be headquartered in or have additional locations in another country. Please click on the country abbreviation in the search box below to change to a different country location.

BBB accredited

Near

Country

USUnited States

Please enter a valid location.

Filter

• 

  Aspen Medical Center

  3450 Zafarano Dr, Ste C Santa Fe, NM 87507-2669

• 

  Aspen Medical Center

  411 S Santa Clara Bridge Rd Espanola, NM 87532-9477

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:11/13/2024

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Complaint: ********
  
  
  
  I am rejecting this response because:
  
  
  
  Even though there are notes of a physical exam performed. No one examined my ears during the visit after reviewing my symptoms: vertigo, intense headache, dizziness, ears were clogged. When I was waiting for the Uber, I asked the provider a question: Do you think it could be an ear infection? Even after this question she did not examine my ears, she only said “I don’t know, they will look at it in the ER”. And it was done at the ER, and they saw a lot of liquid in my ears. Could this be done at the urgent care? It seems this way, but this was not done. And I did not get any prescription at the urgent care, everything was done at the ER. 
  It is correct that the provider did not say that the visit would be for free, she did not say this way. She said that I would be refunded for the visit because they couldn’t help me, and I agree with that. I did not receive medical help at the urgent care.
  
  
  
  Regards,
  
  
  
  ********** **********
  

   

  
  

  [To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, the consumer must give a reason why they are rejecting the response. If the consumer does not provide a reason the complaint will be closed Answered]

  ssed the refund. and on the phone I was told a completely different story about my visit. I was informed that the provider had performed a physical exam and looked at my ears, which is why they would not process the refund.
  
  This new information left me speechless, as it implied that I was lying. I wasn’t feeling well that day, but I do not have problems with my memory. During the phone conversation the lady mentioned that giving a pill is a physical exam, which is not. So basically my insurance and I paid a lot of money for 1 nausea pill and advice to go to the ER. I would like to receive a refund from this medical center since medical care was not provided during the visit.

  Business Response

  Date: 11/26/2024

  Patient presented to Urgent Care for severe HA, nausea, vertigo and ear plugged x 2 days.  

  Patient stated it started with a headache on Sunday, was not able to hold down her dinner due to dizziness and nausea. Since then has had severe nausea and dizziness especially when sitting or standing. Goes from 0/10 lying down to 8/10 upright. Feels slightly better when lying down. Reports she does not have a history of migraines and does not get headaches often. Denies new medications, excess caffeine or increased stress. This is "the worst headache she has ever had." Also feels like her R ear is clogged or she is in an airplane. No recent travel. Took IBU without any relief.

  Complete review of systems from the provider:
  REVIEW OF SYSTEMS:
  General: no fatigue, no weight changes, no fever, no chills
  Head: no pain, no trauma, no lesions
  Eyes: + vision changes, no diplopia, no pain or irritation, no discharge
  Ears: + changes in hearing, no tinnitus, no discharge, no pain
  Nose: no drainage, no epistaxis, no congestion
  Mouth/throat: no sore throat, no gingival bleeding, no difficulty swallowing
  Neck: no stiffness, no pain, no tenderness
  Respiratory: no dyspnea, no wheezing, no hemoptysis, no cough
  CV: no chest pain, no palpitations
  Abdomen: no abdominal pain, + nausea, no vomiting, no diarrhea
  Musculoskeletal: no tenderness or pain, no limitations in range of motion, no joint stiffness or swelling
  Neurologic:+ headaches, no seizures, no paresthesias, no focal weakness, no episodes of syncope, + vertigo, no tremors, no ataxia
  Psychiatric: no mood changes, no sleep changes
  Skin: no pruritis, no rashes.

  PHYSICAL EXAM:- Performed by the medical provider. 
  General: NAD, alert, answers questions appropriately
  Head: NC/AT, no lesions, no facial droop
  Eyes: PERRL, conjunctiva clear bilaterally
  Ears: no external lesions, hearing grossly intact, TMs clear
  Nose: nares patent, no external lesions
  Mouth/throat: no external lesions, oropharynx clear
  Neck: supple, non-tender
  CV: RRR, no murmurs, rubs, or gallops
  Resp: normal respiratory effort, CTA, no wheezes, rales, or rhonchi
  Abdomen: positive bowel sounds, soft, non-tender, non-distended
  Extremities: no clubbing, cyanosis, or edema
  Psych: normal affect.

  Patient was given 4mg of Zofran ODT for the nausea.  Provider sat in the exam room with patient while her uber driver came to pick her up due to the severity of her dizziness and nausea.  Uber driver showed up to clinic, provider walked patient to the driver and was transported to the emergency room.  

  Patient called back on November 13th stating that provider started that this visit would be a no-charge and we would refund her co-pay.  I reached out to the provider that evaluated her for her visit, and nothing was mentioned that the visit would be free. Patient was fully evaluated and Unfornately had to be transferred to a higher level of care.  

  Joanna A****-Clinic Director

   

• Initial Complaint

  Date:12/08/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I would like to register a complaint about a Santa Fe clinic. I would be will to file an affidavit if needed. The owner is ****** ***** **, Medical Director
  
  clinic: Aspen Medical Center **** ******** ** ***** * ***** *** ** *****
  
  One 11-26-22, my son, *** ******, sprained his ankle, and we went to Aspen Medical Center in Santa Fe. He waited 5 and ½ hours, in pain, and then he saw a doctor for less than 3 minutes.
  
  I complained to the staff, and I also pointed out that there were clearly people with active covid in the waiting room. The staff said all suspect covid patients were in the parking lot, not in the lobby. But this was false; there were no suspect covid patients in the parking lot. I sat out there for hours and saw not one. The people in the lobby were not wearing masking properly.
  
  The staff was too overwhelmed to enforce the mask wearing. When I pointed this out, that my son was potentially exposed to covid for almost six hours, the manager said “that’s the risk you run when you seek care at this clinic.”
  
  It's wrong that a young man should get covid when waiting 5 ½ hours to see a doctor for 3 minutes. And to potentially carry that deadly disease back to our home, where he’s in contact with elderly relatives, as is the case here?
  
  The owner of this clinic is clearly stacking up patient after patient after patient, billing them large sums, so he can glide from room to room, on his schedule, and finally release them, often after seeing them for just minutes. The doctor and staff have absolutely no regard for how long the patients have waited, nor what you exposed them to during that wait.
  
  The **** reviews of this clinic are 99% terrible. They are breathtaking. Except for maybe one, they are all 1 star (the lowest) and many people, including me, wished they could have given negative stars. This clinic is harming people for personal profit.
  
  **** ** ****** *** *** ****** ***** *** ** ***** ************ *********************

  Business Response

  Date: 02/09/2023

  January 23, 2022 
  To whom it may concern: 
  This letter is in response to a complaint filed against myself and Aspen Medical Center by **** ****** on January 10, 2023. The complaint is NMMB Investigation Case No. *********** 
  I have thoroughly reviewed the case with our Aspen staff and management and we have a very different version of events than is portrayed by Mr. ******** complaint. 
  First of all, the patient, *** ******, the complainant's son, is 24 years old. He was seen as a new urgent care patient in our Santa Fe clinic on 11/25/22, not 11/26/22, as stated in the complaint. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is traditionally an incredibly busy day for us because Thanksgiving is one of only two days per year that we are closed. It was also during cold and flu season which is traditionally our busy season, as it is at most urgent care centers. And this past Fall, 2022, we had an earlier than usual flu season and a substantial increase in RSV cases, as well as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Some people have termed this the "tripledemic." 
  Mr. ****** stated that he and his son waited "5 and 1/2 hours." However, according to the time stamps in our EHR and PACS system, his son's, *** ******'s, arrival time was 3:15 pm. He was given the 3:20 pm time slot in the queue of patients. As a new patient, he was required to complete our new patient intake forms and paperwork which he did. We have found that this paperwork can take anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes to complete on average. His x-ray was performed at 4:24 pm. The x-ray images were read, interpreted, and signed by the radiologist at 4:57 pm. There was an alert note placed in the patient's chart at 5:25 pm which will be explained later. The patient's chart note was completed and signed electronically at 5:43 pm by the medical provider. It therefore appears that the patient might have spent two hours and 27 minutes in our clinic at the most. However, in my experience, particularly on busy days, chart notes do not get signed until well after patients have left the clinic, and given that the alert note was signed at 5:25 pm, it is possible that the patient only spent about 2 hours or less in the clinic, with much of that time spent in an exam room. 
  I would also like to point out that the complainant, Mr. ******, did not even seem to be present in the waiting room with his son, the patient. Mr. **** ****** actually first became known to our staff when he appeared in our lobby after his son had already been taken back to an exam room. He began to insist that he immediately be taken back to see his son. However, Mr. ****** was told that the medical provider was already in the room with his son. He was also told that he needed to wait until one of our staff members could go back to make sure his son wanted him to come back. As per HIPAA, his son, being an adult, 24 years old, would need to give his permission before we could allow Mr. ****** to go back into the room to see him. Our staff offered to have Mr. ****** wait outside in his car if he felt uncomfortable in our waiting room. He refused this offer. 
  Mr. ****** asserts that there were people in the waiting room with active Covid and he states that people were not properly masked. I can attest that we have worked closely with the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) and have followed all of the public health mandates since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and public health emergency that started in March 2020. We continue to follow best practices associated with the pandemic according to the WHO, the CDC, and the NMDOH. Our protocols have evolved over time. At the time that Mr. ****** visited the clinic, we were still screening all the people who entered the building for active Covid disease. We were still doing Covid testing in the parking lot and trying to do our best to separate out potential Covid patients from the rest of our patients. We have required that all people entering the clinic over the age of 2 wear face masks covering the mouth and nose at all times while in the clinic. We continue to have this requirement and we even provide medical grade face masks free of charge to those who do not have their own masks. We have also offered to have patients wait in their cars if they are not comfortable waiting in our waiting room. There are many reasons why people cough, and to state that everyone in the waiting room who happened to cough had active COVID-19 disease is a blatantly false accusation. 
  Unfortunately Mr. ****** became increasingly irate and belligerent and even verbally abusive to our staff and was even verbally abusive to patients who were in the waiting room. One of our patients even stood up and verbally confronted him on his unruly behavior. 
  He was allowed to go back and be with his son after a very short time. As the patient and his father, Mr ******, were leaving, they were arguing loudly with each other. There was yelling heard right outside our clinic door just after they left the building and the patient was then seen physically restraining his father, the complainant, and trying to pull him back from coming into our clinic again. The patient actually apologized for his father's behavior as they were leaving and he said "I'm sorry, [my father] always creates a scene like this wherever he goes.' 
  "} 
  There is actually a short-hand alert note that was entered into the patient's chart at 5:25 pm on 11/25/22 stating: "Patient's father not allowed in building, very verbally abusive to patients and staff due to wait time for son (patient). Both son and father were arguing in the parking lot, son trying to calm father down. Patient is an adult and can be seen by himself for all future visits. Will forward message to [management]." 
  I would also like to point out and make a note that there has been increasing aggression and violence in our society, a lot of which has been directed against public servants, public officials, and health care providers. This situation seems to have have been exacerbated by and worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. After the incident with Mr. ******, several of our staff expressed concerns about their own safety. We are certainly seeing increasingly aggressive behavior at times among people in our facilities, be they patients or family members. After the incident with Mr. ****** at our Santa Fe clinic, and after considering measures such as hiring a security officer, we decided to erect a 6-foot by 3-foot waiting area sign stating that we will not tolerate belligerent behavior in our facilities both in Santa Fe and Espanola. It is a sad statement about our current society that we have to go to such measures to protect health care workers in this day and age. 
  Mr. ****** quotes our "manager" as making a statement to him, but our manager was not in the building that day. 
  Mr. ****** makes some very strong and insulting statements in his complaint such as, "The doctor and staff have absolutely no regard for how long people have waited, nor what you exposed them to during that wait." This is another blatantly false accusation. For years we have used and continue to use wait- time management software so that patients can check in online, complete paperwork remotely and electronically, wait at home or in another location, and receive a text when they are ready to be seen. There is a screen in the waiting room that shows patient's expected wait times in a HIPAA compliant fashion. Our front desk staff are very good at setting expectations and letting patients know when wait times are long, and offering to have people wait elsewhere if they are not comfortable waiting in our clinic. They are also very diligent about making sure everyone has a face mask when they come in the building. Among other measures, we have put up plexiglass barriers, we have multiple waiting areas that are separated form each other, and we have even offered telemedicine visits, all with the goal of continuing to provide a service to the community while keeping people as healthy and safe as we possibly 
  can. 
  He goes on to berate our facility even more, referencing **** reviews and stating that, “This clinic is harming people for personal profit." Nothing could be farther from the truth. I am the owner of the clinic. I am still in debt from the costs of opening the clinic in 2013. In the nearly 10 years that we have operated, I have averaged about half of the take home pay every year compared to what I was making when I was an employed physician in Santa Fe. We were the first urgent care center to open on the South Side back in March of 2013. Since then, we have received multiple awards including the Best New Business Award from the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce as well as the Behavioral Health Star Award from the NM Behavioral Health Planning Council. 
  **** is something I use to find restaurants to eat at when I am in an unfamiliar town or city. We have never paid for **** or invested any time or energy in building up a reputation on ****. **** tends to punish businesses that do not pay for their services by highlighting negative reviews for such facilities. 
  However, if you search for urgent care facilities in Santa Fe on ******, you will find that we are the highest-rated urgent care center with by far the most reviews. We have over 1500 reviews and our next closest competitor is ranked lower than us by ****** review star ratings and has barely more than 200 reviews. 
  In summary, we founded Aspen Medical Center 10 years ago to provide a needed and valuable service on the South Side of Santa Fe. We are very proud to have continued to serve the community faithfully throughout this time. We proudly sponsor ******* every year and we have sponsored multiple children's sports teams such as the *** ****** ******** Soccer Club which has helped thousands of northern New Mexico children to be physically active and develop a love and passion for the game of soccer. We provide a much more time and cost-efficient alternative to the ER for all kinds of problems including strains and sprains, minor broken bones, cuts and bruises, colds, sore throats, etc. We also provide primary care services which are in short supply throughout the state of New Mexico. 
  We believe that the accusations made by Mr. **** ****** are blatantly false. It is also notable that the actual patient, Mr. *** ******, in this case, did not complain to us about the service we provided and he actually apologized for his father's behavior. We are ready and willing to go under oath and testify if necessary. I will do everything in my power to protect the reputation and good standing in the community of myself and our organization, Aspen Medical Center. 
  I would like to point out that in my nearly 17 years as a practicing physician in New Mexico and the nearly 10 years of existence of Aspen Medical Center, having literally treated hundreds of thousands of patients both in urgent care and primary care settings in Northern New Mexico during nearly 2 decades, this is the first time I or our organization has ever had a complaint go to the New Mexico Medical Board. 
  Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to assist in resolving this issue. 
  Thank you very much. 
  Sincerely, 
  ????? 
  ****** ***** **