Review: "Surprise Bill" From Vulcan Imaging Associates - WOULD NOT Correct 6" Head Trauma Misread - video Dailymotion

mymedicalnightmare

In an internet review posted in June, 2025  a patient / customer of negligent radiologists Vulcan Imaging Associates reports they received a "surprise bill"  following a pulmonary CT scan at Russell Medical (Alabama). They inquired as to the price beforehand and paid for the scan outside of insurance coverage and believed the price they were given to be for the entire procedure. 3 months later they received the additional bill. When the patient called to inquire about the bill they report a very rude reception.   Accusations of harassment tactics and unprofessionalism continue to be made against the company, which regularly boasts 40+ medical doctors on its roster.   UAB (University Of Alabama Birmingham) also continues to empower and give business to this outfit 6 months following closing its $450m+ USD business deal acquiring local area St. Vincent's hospitals from Ascension: a really bad sign for the future of healthcare in Alabama. This comes despite a growing public outcry regarding the bad business practices of this company & their MD's.    Recently Vulcan Imaging has began to sponsor events in the affluent areas / neighborhoods around Birmingham, AL. (including Greystone (280) & Mountain Brook). My conclusion is they are interested in servicing customers with good insurance and ignore patients with bad or no insurance. (I had no insurance when I was a patient of their doctors & was ignored & disrespected)     My own experience confirmed their status among the lawless and unregulated landscape of the medical services sector around Birmingham, Alabama. A situation which has gone unchecked and thrived for many years.    In another video I related a BBB (Better Business Bureau) account of a 100% disabled veteran who was hounded over a bill despite the fact he had 100% / full coverage due to his status.     I was a patient of Vulcan Imaging MD Michael Brant Ruff who missed 6 inches of infection in my head / neck and evidence of a broken skull injury I almost died from in 2019. I include my April, 2022 call with Vulcan's Kim Mooney. She presides over 37 radiologists doctors in their group. I was told by Mooney that they "100% Stand By" a report of their radiologist who missed serious injuries in the MRI. She did not elaborate on who "they" were however. Mooney does not possess a medical license. I was also told they do not consult with patients and there was nothing their company could do in regards to my request to have a 2019 MRI scan reread, in which their doctor Michael Brant Ruff, stated I had no injuries and in which evidence of around 6 inches head trauma and infection can be observed. They would not put me in contact with the doctor or attempt to correct the error of their doctor.   Mooney gave me the phone number to reach the company CEO Eric Blackman (strangely she would not transfer me to him or his voicemail despite working in the same office with him).

Transcript

00:00All right, as always, you can go to YouTube channel My Medical Nightmare and see 40 plus

00:07hours video on everything that happened to me. All right, August 19th, 2025, and we got some new

00:15reviews out on negligent radiologists, Vulcan Imaging Associates. They are a Birmingham,

00:23Alabama-based association of radiological medical doctors. The first one you can read

00:31on Google itself. Type in the name of the company as the search term and look on the right-hand side

00:38of the page and click reviews. It looks like it went up in May of this year. It reads,

00:46funny, there seems to be a pattern here with this company and some misdirection when it comes to

00:51billing. For context, see my review on Russell Medical or don't waste your time. Avoid this

00:57business. When I called to inquire, they were just rude. My bill was only $126. I just wanted to

01:06understand as I was under the assumption I had already paid at the hospital. If you go to this

01:11customer and patient's review on Russell Medical, it looks like they're talking about Russell Medical

01:18Center located in Alexander City, Alabama. This review reads, had a pulmonary CT scan performed here.

01:27I live in Birmingham, so I had called beforehand to clearly understand the pricing as this is not

01:35covered under insurance. Some places will not perform this scan without a doctor's request.

01:43I was given a price over the phone, paid at the office, and had the procedure. I received an

01:52additional bill three months later for another $126 for them to read the scan. When I called to

02:00question it, they said it was a third party, and that is Vulcan Imaging, that sent the bill. It had

02:07nothing to do with them, and they were rude about it. Given the nature of the conversation, they must

02:13have a lot of miscommunication when it comes to billing. I see, yeah, very interesting. In this

02:19instance, it looks like we have a case of unstated or surprise billing or charges. You know, this is

02:28very disturbing. This may be in violation of standing law. If you only had to deal with Vulcan Imaging

02:35Associates and had a billing matter, you might have made off pretty good as a customer and patient

02:42because what happened in my case is I was misdiagnosed and I almost died because other

02:50doctors told me that I had no injuries present despite the fact that I did. Another assertion of

02:57unprofessional business practices. Yeah, my experience dealing with Vulcan Imaging Associates

03:03and reading about others' experience is they will do and say anything to get your money, and once they

03:11got it, they will not speak to you. Their tactics involve targeting affluent communities, subdivisions,

03:20neighborhoods around Birmingham, Alabama. They'll go into an area such as Mountain Brook or around the

03:28vicinity of the Greystone neighborhood up on Highway 280. They'll sponsor events in these areas. They're

03:37interested in a clientele who have exemplary insurance like a lot of corrupt doctors. Once they find security

03:48in well-paid insurance, they'll leech on Vulcan Imaging. They regularly reply to reviews and complaints.

03:58But the reality is this is simply a token or a procedural issue. Whenever you call the number

04:06or attempt to communicate with Vulcan Imaging Associates, the discussion starts to lean toward

04:15culpability, liability, or responsibility on the part of Vulcan Imaging and their doctors. As you'll hear in

04:23my own recorded call at the end of this video, they'll start making up lame excuses and eventually hang up

04:31on you. Here you'll read another assertion of the rudeness of the staff of Vulcan Imaging Associates.

04:40You can hear this in my call also. I don't put up with this stuff. I'll take these people to task

04:45in a discussion. If you deal with Vulcan Imaging's doctors like I did and I had no insurance, you

04:53basically get discarded, forgotten. All right, so takeaways. When you have x-rays, MRIs, and CTs

05:01taken around Birmingham, you want to find out who the doctors are that did the analysis with the scans,

05:08who those doctors work with in terms of radiological organizations and groups. If you had any kind of

05:17problems and you find out that a Vulcan Imaging Associates doctor was involved in your scan, you need to go

05:27on guard, use discretion in prosecuting your own resolution in the matter. If that involves seeking out an

05:35attorney, feel free to share my videos with them so they know who and what they're dealing with. You

05:42need to be a maximum alert when dealing with these predators. I was a patient customer of a Vulcan Imaging

05:48Associates doctor and I'll go into my own situation with what happened to me. I had an MRI of my head

05:56handled by Vulcan Imaging Associates and St. Vincent's in Trustville, now UAB, in 2019. In my own scan, I was told I had no

06:08injuries. I knew better because I was close to death. Almost died from this. Went and got those pictures. I'll put the

06:14pictures up here in this video. As you can see in this MRI, I've got about six inches diameter infection inside my head.

06:23Vulcan Imaging Associates Neuroradiological Specialist doctor, Michael Brandt Ruff, MD, went to school for 10

06:31years to do his job. He wrote in my records and report, which you can see in this video also, I scanned

06:39these in. He said I had no injury present. This created a very uncomfortable situation that has yet to be

06:48resolved and is outstanding as of this recording, April 4th, 2025. Took these issues to basically all

06:59concerned and they all refused to correct their error, admit their mistake, do a reread. Oh yeah,

07:07and they sent me a bill for this MRI and it was somewhere north of $600. Interestingly, Vulcan was

07:15working with St. Vincent's Ascension, who did the scan for me. On November 1st, 2024, Ascension sold

07:25this location and five other hospitals to University of Alabama at Birmingham and this whole system has

07:32been rebranded UAB St. Vincent's. Why did Ascension sell and leave the area? My story is definitely

07:39something that the public needs to be aware of because the practices that were allowed to occur

07:45in the St. Vincent's hospitals and medical facilities were probably enough to shut this place down. Just

07:52a personal perspective, my injury and all the complications, my own issue is worth several

07:58million dollars. All right, so today we're trying to follow up on the Michael Brandt Ruff MRI that I had

08:05done in 2019. I was referred to this scan by Northside Medical Associates nurse James

08:13Frankie Crum. This is now Complete Health owned by Faro's Capital. This is located off of Happy

08:20Hall Road, Trustville, Alabama, headquarters in Pell City. Michael Brandt Ruff is a doctor who read

08:28the MRI for St. Vincent's Ambulatory Healthcare Network LLC. That's Ascension. If you're following

08:41my documentation, you'll note here that in Birmingham, Alabama, we got a real big problem

08:47with responsibility, accountability, and radiology. And this week I talked to the two main radiology

08:58companies in Birmingham, Alabama. And I recently spoke with Doyle Stewart, CEO of Birmingham

09:07Radiological Group. According to their website, they have 38 radiologists who work with them.

09:14And here in this call, you'll hear me speaking with Kim Mooney. She is the administrative coordinator

09:22at Vulcan Imaging Associates. And she states that they have 37 radiologists who work with them.

09:31So if you've got radiology issues, you go into a medical practice or hospital doctor, you have

09:40an x-ray, MRI, CT scan. These are the types of doctors, and these may be the actual doctors,

09:47doctors who will be looking at your scan in the Birmingham area. And yeah, according to my findings

09:55here, not very reassuring. If your scan is misread, you discover this and you try to seek a redress

10:06diagnosis on these misdiagnosis issues. Not encouraging, my experience here.

10:14You have reached Vulcan Imaging. Vulcan Imaging, this is Kim.

10:19Yes, ma'am. I called last week. I was trying to get in touch with one of your radiologists,

10:24Dr. Michael Brandt-Ruff. I had an MRI scan that was looked at by this doctor in 2019. I got a report

10:34with his signature on it, saying I don't have injuries. However, in the MRI images themselves,

10:42I have evidence of a very serious head trauma-based injury. And yeah, I was told last week that you

10:50guys would try to have this doctor get in touch with me. So it's been about a week, and I just

10:55wanted to see what the status of that was. Okay, so I did look into this, and based on,

11:05I mean, there's not anything else we can do, so there's not anything that Dr. Ruff can do to assist

11:11you with that, since the report's already been read. So there's not anything we can do.

11:16Well, I beg to differ. This was a $700 MRI scan. This doctor was paid to have this scan

11:23looked at, and he did not note the injuries. So he is at fault. And so is Vulcan Imaging.

11:30We stand by that report, 100%.

11:32Okay, well, the report is in error, 100%, ma'am. Can I speak to somebody in management?

11:37Uh, yes, sir. I am the practice administrator.

11:44Okay, can I speak to the head of the company?

11:48Um, let's see.

11:50Who's above you?

11:52Um, the chairman of the board.

11:54Okay, well, I need to speak to somebody in authority, because you're in error with your

11:58statement, ma'am. Not professional.

12:03I am so sorry you feel that way, but we stand by...

12:05Well, it's not how I feel. It's the facts, ma'am.

12:09Well, now, what you... If that's... If what you're stating, I would... I mean, we would

12:15respond, you know, maybe if you consult an attorney to have...

12:19Well, I mean, if I can't... If I can't speak to somebody on the telephone about this, I'd

12:24be happy to come clear it up in person.

12:28You're more than welcome to come up here, um, and talk to whoever you need to talk to.

12:33Um, uh...

12:36Because this is a serious issue.

12:39I understand that from your perspective.

12:42Yeah, your excuses aren't going to cut it either, ma'am.

12:46It's not... It's not an excuse, sir. I really don't know how to help.

12:50Um...

12:50What you should do is... Okay, you're in business, all right?

12:53Well, you have doctors who went to school for 10 years. They're millionaires, okay?

12:57They're reading, uh, radiology reports for hospitals and other doctors, okay?

13:03What you need to do is... You need to have them do their job correctly.

13:06And if they miss major injuries in patients that they almost died from, such as myself,

13:12you need to simply, uh, make an attempt to correct this error.

13:15Now, I could get in touch with Dr. Michael Brant-Ruff.

13:18I could supply my records. He could look at these images again.

13:21And we can clear this up in a few minutes. Could I please talk to you?

13:26No, sir. You're... I can't reach out to Dr. Ruff.

13:29Um, we... We don't consult with patients.

13:32Um...

13:32That's a... That's a very sorry excuse, ma'am.

13:35I'm so sorry. That's our policy.

13:38Um... Let's see. What can I do to help you?

13:41Let's see. Um... Let's see.

13:44Um... Eric Blackman is my CEO.

13:48Well, I mean, why... Why are you mentioning his name? Why don't you just connect me to him?

13:54He's not in the office.

13:57Well, that's pretty convenient, huh?

14:00Well, it's the truth. Um...

14:02Well, I don't believe you.

14:04I'm so sorry about that. Um...

14:06Yeah, me too.

14:06Uh... Let's see. What I can do is I can give you...

14:13Let's see.

14:15His direct number is...

14:18How many radiologists work for your company, ma'am?

14:22Um... I have, uh...

14:25Thirty-seven.

14:26So you have thirty-seven.

14:28Uh... Why don't you take this scan?

14:29Call somebody right now and have them look at this scan and correct this issue for me.

14:33But that is not how radiology works. We can...

14:38Yeah, you're not professional. We've already established that.

Review: "Surprise Bill" From Vulcan Imaging Associates - WOULD NOT Correct 6" Head Trauma Misread

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