Surgical Associates of Monterey Bay: Santa Cruz Office

On being referred to Brian Waddle by my primary at Dignity Health because SAMB is the only outsource they (Dignity) have on contract for my hernia removal, I went to my first office visit with Waddle during which he asked when my last colonoscopy was (14 yrs ago), looked at my lower abdominal area for two seconds from his chair six feet away (I stood up and dropped my pants partially to expose my right front), and after some banter about the hernia op, told me to schedule with his assistant at the front desk a colonoscopy, a post-op consult for that, a hernia removal, and a post-op consult for that. Both ops would be under general anesthesia. Over this three-month period (July-September) I'd also be undergoing a Urolift prostate procedure with my urologist (Dignity) under general anesthesia. My summer 2023: prostate op-postop-colonoscopy-postop-hernia op-postop. I was nervous about undergoing three rounds of general anesthesia over three months. A day before my colonoscopy while feeling anxious about the general anesthesia and the op, I received a text message from SAMB, not to go through what to expect and allay my anxiety, but to tell me to bring a means of payment for the [$price-amt] for the colonoscopy and [$price-amt] for the office visit that I still owed at that time and they would take credit cards. I'm not so much complaining about the exhorbitant price levels but more about the cold lack of empathy and the tacky, unprofessional soliciting of payment prior to the operation. What if I had paid and they screwed up something serious during the anesthesia or the op? My image of SAMB as a cold money-driven organization is based on these experiences and not any other source of information. Naturally I am now looking at alternatives to SAMB after having cancelled all my subsequent SAMB appointments.