00:00To see everything that happened to me regarding my experience with this doctor and this medical practice,
00:07you can see my documentation at YouTube channel, My Medical Nightmare.
00:12Alright, San Francisco, California based ABC Channel 7 KGO TV has a piece on another outrageous scam
00:23that AFC Urgent Care American Family Care has been caught trying to pull off on patients and customers.
00:30This is dated February 20th, 2025.
00:34Bay Area Urgent Care patients billed up to $900 each after receiving free COVID tests.
00:42And just to interject, I looked up this location on the Better Business Bureau website,
00:49where AFC Urgent Care has an F rating, by the way.
00:52And I found one review here where they state they received a bill for $2,700 for the free COVID test.
01:02But continuing, according to KGO, Bay Area residents say they're getting billed hundreds of dollars
01:08from a Newark Urgent Care that was supposedly giving out free COVID tests during the height of the pandemic.
01:14The company says they're billing patients because the insurance companies didn't fully reimburse the urgent care.
01:20Now the Alameda County District Attorney's Office has stepped in.
01:25The owner of the AFC Urgent Care in Newark says the company filed for bank rubbed seat
01:30after more than $30 million U.S. dollars in unpaid claims were denied.
01:35More than four years after the COVID tests were given,
01:39the company started billing patients and threatening to take them to small claims court if they did not pay.
01:44They list some of the patient customer stories here.
01:48One man took his family to the location to be swabbed for a COVID test.
01:54He said the urgent care advertised is free.
01:57And four years later, he received a bill for this.
01:59Says this patient did not understand why he was also being charged for seeing a doctor.
02:04Quote, we didn't see anyone appear to be a physician or ask us any questions about our health or symptoms.
02:09Unquote.
02:11One guy here got a bill for $600.
02:14Another one for $900.
02:16According to the AFC Urgent Care of Newark attorney,
02:20he says the company tried to sue insurance companies for the lack of reimbursements
02:25but didn't have the legal standing to do so under the CARES Act.
02:29And this attorney says the company is out more than $30 million in unpaid claims.
02:33It says an Alameda County judge issued a temporary restraining order against this company and the doctor
02:39precluding them from attempting to collect money from patients for the advertised free COVID test
02:46until they can appear in court to make their case in March.
02:49Says Schreiber, who represents patient Kenneth Jew,
02:53says as a result of the Alameda County DA's office request for a temporary restraining order,
02:58they decided not to file a lawsuit.
03:00Since AFC Urgent Care of Newark filed for bankruptcy,
03:04he also said it was unlikely he would be able to obtain the refunds
03:08for those patients who already paid their collection notices.
03:12And it says here American Family Care, AFC Urgent Care, was founded in 1982.
03:18And as of 2025, they claim to have 400 walk-in clinics.
03:22They generate more than $1 billion in system-wide sales annually,
03:273,500 highly trained healthcare professionals training over 4 million patients each year.
03:33The truth is, American Family Care is a very troubled company.
03:38And there are many, many people in the Birmingham, Alabama area and beyond
03:43who have unresolved outstanding issues and complaints with AFC Urgent Care.
03:50There are apparently a lot of people looking at the corrupt business practices
03:54of American Family Care, AFC Urgent Care, and their partners across the United States.
04:01I'll go into my own details on what happened to me as a patient customer
04:06at an AFC near Birmingham, Alabama in 2019.
04:11I attempted to contact Randy Johansson regarding my own issues.
04:15My phone call was never returned.
04:17Yeah, if you look at my situation and what happened to me,
04:21what you'll see again and again is current medical providers
04:25and practitioners around Birmingham, Alabama,
04:29they choose quantity of patients and potential sources of money and income over quality.
04:40And by doing so, they overlook potentially life-threatening injuries, for example.
04:46They don't give the proper amount of attention to each individual customer and patient.
04:53And this is a big problem that needs to be reversed in the United States of America.
04:59We need further health care reform.
05:02And here's yet another example of the bad way in which AFC Urgent Care,
05:07American Family Care chooses to engage in their business.
05:11Back in May 2022, I tried to contact this doctor whose name appeared on the top of medical records
05:24that I requested from American Family Care.
05:29And this was in regards to a misdiagnosed x-ray of my skull that I had done in 2019.
05:42Blake Thomas, MD's name, appears here as supervising the nurse that facilitated the x-ray in the AFC clinic.
05:52This is Kimberly Kelly.
05:55And he should have also been checking over the work of radiologist Dr. Anna Maria Echnik, MDD-ABR,
06:06which the x-ray was outsourced to through Xperity.
06:11You call the phone number under this doctor's name on the radiologist report.
06:18It leads to Xperity.
06:20This doctor and subsequently the nurse told me I had no injuries appear in this x-ray.
06:29I'll put the actual images in this video so you can see the truth regarding this matter.
06:37I have around a 3-inch in diameter translucent oval here.
06:43This is visible in a standard x-ray.
06:46No contrast was used in this scan.
06:49Subsequently, I discovered in further MRI and CT that I had broken the underside of my skull.
06:58And the translucent oval that you can see in the AFC and Xperity x-ray, this shows up as infection surrounding the main wound.
07:09I tried to contact this doctor to get this x-ray scan looked at again because I paid $175 for this visit and I got a misdiagnosis here.
07:23This is not helpful if you're a medical patient seeking treatment with doctors and nurses, in this case licensed in the state of Alabama.
07:37I found that this doctor was located at the American Family Care Clinic in Cava Village off Highway 280 in Birmingham.
07:48I tried to call this doctor's office.
07:52It was then that I found out by talking to the receptionist.
07:58Every individual that worked in this location that I spoke with, they used a nickname, a false name, or a pseudonym.
08:10In trying to reach Dr. Blake Thomas, MD, I was put in touch with an individual who identified himself as the office manager of this clinic.
08:26And he went by the name Sadler, S-A-D-D-L-E-R.
08:30I later found out after my call with this office manager that I was in fact speaking with the state of Alabama licensed medical doctor, Christopher Blake Thomas, who I was trying to reach in the first place.
08:50So he gave a false name.
08:53And I found this out very simply.
08:55You can hear my recorded calls with this individual.
09:00And Dr. Blake Thomas gave a television interview with Birmingham, Alabama, TV station WVTM, channel 13.
09:10Listen to the two voices, and they are identical.
09:15I believe that a medical doctor identifying himself under a pseudonym is against the law in Alabama.
09:24And possibly other jurisdictions as well.
09:28This is a type of fraud.
09:31I'm not very happy about my experience dealing with this individual.
09:36Yeah, in trying to get that x-ray and the misdiagnosis looked at again, the office manager, again, a false identity that this doctor was using.
09:48And he told me that he could do nothing to help me fix this situation.
09:56No refund of my $175.
09:59He wouldn't go to the medical doctor or experity and have this situation looked at or reversed.
10:09He told me on the phone, you can hear this recorded, there's nothing he was going to be able to do to help me fix this situation.
10:16And this is real bad news because that injury that I had, I almost died for him in 2019.
10:22This is totally unacceptable as a medical patient.
10:25AFC as well, I contacted, they would not help me with this situation.
10:32I talked to experity, they would not help me fix this situation or correct this.
10:37And basically, I was ripped off as a customer and a medical patient.
10:41I went to the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners and filed complaints in this situation.
10:50They would do nothing to help me with their oversight.
10:54Totally useless.
10:55They're lazy.
10:57No doctor worth their salt should work for this place.
10:59No doctor worth their salt should work for this situation.
11:00No doctor worth their salt should work for this situation.
11:01No doctor worth their salt should work for this situation.
11:02No doctor worth their salt should work for this situation.
11:03No doctor worth it.
11:04No doctor worth it.
11:05No doctor worth it.
11:06No doctor worth it.
11:07No doctor worth it.
11:08No doctor worth it.
11:09No doctor worth it.
11:10No doctor worth it.
11:11No doctor worth it.
11:12No doctor worth it.
11:13No doctor worth it.
11:14No doctor worth it.
11:15No doctor worth it.
11:16No doctor worth it.
11:17No doctor worth it.
11:18No doctor worth it.
11:19No doctor worth it.
11:20No doctor worth it.
11:21No doctor worth it.
11:22No doctor worth it.
11:23No doctor worth it.
11:24No doctor worth it.
11:25No doctor worth it.
11:26No doctor worth it.
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