Lincare Holdings
Reviews and Complaints

I am with you. I am a driver for Lincare and we are located in an area that gets heavy snowfall. This crazy company will not get us vehicles that can get through the weather but expect us to put our lives @ risk for $12 an hour. We love our patients but also want to make it home to our families as well. We can't even get snow tires on our 2 wheel drive vans?

@ lookinforanewjob, first off, your name says it all and second, how does sister companies get your patients information in order to represent you?

We don't, other sister companies call our patient's representing themselves as Lincare!

A manager - did you READ? One problem I personally comprehended, which I see you don't, is that this Larry guy was demanding cash...no check or credit card. Period. Why? That sounds a way shady to me...this patient seemed a tad nicer than me, as I would've told Larry to bugger off. (just in case you don't know, that's the British form of saying 'f*** off'. Cash only? REALLY? Again, I ask WHY? I do understand the office not being able to quote a price, as there was no telling what was wrong with it, thus no way to determine the cost at that time. Also, I question whether the office bothered to explain things to the patient. Patients do not always know/understand the issue regarding repairs. Did anyone bother to try to educate the patient on the issues regarding sending off to the manufacturer? Much less the warranty issue? Is it not Lincare's JOB to pass relevant information on to their patients? While any normal person understands that machines break, why would Lincare be in the business of selling machines without some kind of contingency plan on how to fix it, and to be ready to explain things to patients from the get go? You guys MUST work with these patients and give them options, including what to do, even if the machine is no longer in warranty. Why do you have a problem with explaining these things to patients? Open and honest communication is the key...not just standing there demanding cash for shipping. I'm a former employee of this pathetic company, and trust me when I say I know a gazillion MD's who are no longer referring business to the area I live in due to this type of bad business practice. And before you say I'm just a disgruntled ex employee, know this: 1. I left of my own accord HAPPILY - I was doing cartwheels in the parking lot to my car the day I decided to leave. 2. Within DAYS, I went to work at a hospital close by my house, and am extremely happy. Just know that one bad word about a company carries a helluva lot more weight than 100 GOOD words. Why do you think so many doctors are refusing to work with us? They're getting it.

As a Lincare manager, for one, your attitude and tone show such negative customer service, who would want to deal with your company. Not only did I end up going to the local office to pick up my VPAP machine so that I would be able to use it sooner than later, I had no followup what so ever, not even a phone call to see how I was making out. Only a complaint to your corporate offices to the district manager was I actually contacted. The local manager was nasty and to this day I have never had anyone followup. I have been billed for supplies that I was told were not covered by the insurance company and then I receive and EOB from the insurance company listing a higher charge for the same piece of equipment. I had to keep calling to get my money back from your company. Then two months after I picked up my machine I received a letter and envelope in the mail to send my memory card to them so that they could report to the insurance carrier. Did I ever receive it back? No, so I have been using this machine for a year, no followup, no memory card to collect the data and they bill my new insurance company for not only a new machine but me being a new patient. Not only has your company been paid over what the cost is for the very expensive machine I utilize between insurance payments and my payments, you expect me to continue rental on the machine! I was told by the so wonderful (ha! ha!) representative that after 10 months I would own the machine outright...It's pretty funny how you blame the patient, when your company completely shows why our health care system is in the mess it's in. I feel sorry for the elderly who do not have the energy and/or sometimes the where with all to understand and stand up for their rights. Your company is the worst company I have ever dealt with and I will never ever work with you again. It's pretty sad when your corporate office doesn't even respond to a complaint. (and yes I sent paperwork to back up my statements) and yes I have kept every EOB sent to me from both insurance carriers. I also don't order anything through your company since you charge the insurance carrier over twice what it's worth, when it can be purchased through cpap.com for half the price and it actually gets delivered. Go merit your customer service and business practices where you won't do so much harm to people.

As a Lincare center manager (No, I'm not Larry), this complaint bothers me because it badly misrepresents a common repair scenario. 1st, the patient complains that when he brought in his broken bi-pap they were all too busy to properly check it, so he was forced to leave it. My impression is that he dropped in on the center and no one at Lincare knew he was coming. The problem is that Lincare is a home (emphasis on HOME) respiratory company, meaning that on any given day almost all employees except customer service are at patients' HOMES, providing patients the services they've requested. The few left in the office can frequently be quite busy. 2nd, neither customer service staff nor managers are certified repair technicians, so the unit couldn't be "thoroughly checked." 3rd, if the unit was 3 years old, it was owned by the patient and no longer under warranty by the manufacturer. Bi-paps are medical devices . To ensure they're repaired properly, the manufacturer or an authorized repair facility must do the repair. Lincare centers are neither. This patient's unit would have had to be sent out to be "thoroughly checked" before repair. If the patient wanted the center to ship it out for repair, then he should have expected to pay for the shipping. Since the repair facility hadn't even had a chance to inspect it yet, they obviously couldn't give him an estimate for the repair. PLUS, insurance companies may replace units that have been "broken beyond repair, " but they rely on the MANUFACTURER'S inspection to determine whether the unit is broken to that degree. The insurance company isn't just going to take Lincare's word for it. As far as Larry telling him that he couldn't store his machine at his center, Lincare's adhere to strict standards for their accreditation and can be inspected at any time. If an inspector walks in, ALL equipment in the center has to either be clean, bagged, and tagged ready to go to a patient; or it has to be in a designated cleaning area under brown bags indicating that it is dirty. There is no area in a Lincare center that inspectors accept as a designated storage area for broken patient-owned equipment. In short, this patient appears to have wanted this center to be able to repair his unit on-the-spot during is unscheduled visit, possibly at no cost to him. With the unit out of warranty, it was going to have to to out for inspection to get a repair quote, and that was going to take time. In short, this patient seems to have made no effort to understand the basic repair process. I believe he/she has mis-represented Lincare because not only was this issue more about the failure of the patient to understand the issue than it was about Lincare failing the patient in any way; but this same scenario would have played out the same way whether the patient was with Lincare or any of Lincare's competitors. This patient complaint against Lincare is without merit.