text: I have been a patient of Arizona Family Care with a primary care physician of Dr Heidi Bannister since well to be honest I do not remember Since before for sure Dr Bannister has always been friendly and attentive with a caring demeanor In fact when I changed jobs in early and found that my new insurance did not cover her I was rather upset and very happy when I found that my new employers insurance in covered her nnTo put it another way I live near the northern intersection of the I and the This office is Glendale just off the on Union Hills It is easily a minute drive to the office and there are plenty of doctors nearer to where I livennYou may then question why I have given her office a twostar reviewnnIn December I had an appointment with Dr Bannister as a followup for a head cold and eye problems that I was having She asked that I schedule a followup appointment for a month out so I stopped and scheduled one for midJanuarynnI received the reminder call the Friday before the appointment and realized that I had forgotten to ask for the time off work so I would not be able to make the visit Fully intending to call I wound up with a number of critical issues dumped on me toward the end of the day and it slipped my mind I did not think of it again until Monday morning when I noticed the reminder card on my desk By that time the appointment was wellpast so I decided I would simply go ahead and wait until the next time I needed to go in for refills or whatnotnnA few days later I received a letter from the doctors office I figured it was a reminder that I had missed the appointment To my surprise I opened it to find a letter from the office signed by the doctor that they were dropping me as a patient The reasoningnnThree missed appointments one in another last year and then the one a few days ago Jan nnNow do not get me wrong I understand that missed appointments can lose an office money and because issues for other patients Howevernn The doctor NEVER mentioned to me in any of the intervening appointments I had in and this last appointment that this was their policy nor is it mentioned in any of their documentation I just went to their website and doublecheckednn In every case that I had a missed appointment I was charged a missed appointment fee in two of the cases more than my insurance copay which I understand is only partial compensation since the visit is actually far more than that that I paidnn In one of those cases the appointment in I actually DID call the office the evening before to cancel but because of voice mail problems I was unable to leave a message I paid the missed fee anyway the next time I went in because I liked the doctors office and did not want to make a fussnnFor whatever reason the impersonality of the letter bothered me My first thought was to call the office but to be honest it is too much of a hassle there was no diplomacy here so if they do not want me as a customer I do not want themnnI would suggest to the office that they include this policy on their paperwork and to call hours before an appointment instead of the day before when they require hours notice of cancellationnnKeep this in mind the next time you visit the doctor apparently the friendly relationship you perceive with your doctor only lasts until you have inconvenienced them a handful of times over the course of years then you are out the door