We are extremely disappointed with Dr. Alex Mah and his office. To say the least, they were irresponsible. As a result, our daughter's nearsightedness has progressed badly under his care or lack of care.
In 2019, we saw our daughter's nearsightedness progressed badly, so we visited a few optometrists for the Ortho-K program. We finally decided to go with Dr. Mah in November 2019 because he and his team gained our trust by saying all the right things including regular follow up appointments. Everything was fine in the first few weeks until our scheduled appointment on March 20, 2020 was canceled by his office due to the COVID 19.
After the cancellation, we never heard from them for sixteen months. We did not know if they were open or not. After the reopening on July 16, 2021, we called them for an eye exam appointment.
After nineteen months, we finally saw Dr. Mah again on July 26, 2021. Unfortunately, our daughter's nearsightedness has progressed very badly. We asked Dr. Mah why it got so bad even with the Ortho-K. He gave us some indefinite answers including she has grown, too much screen time, genetics, everyone is different, etc. On the other hand, his definite conclusion was that her eyesight would have dropped even more if she did not wear the Ortho-K. We believed him again, althought we were very disappointed with the result. We even paid the deposit for a new pair of Ortho-K following the appointment.
After we went home, we asked a few friends for their Ortho-K experiences with other optometrists during the COVID 19. They told us they had follow up appointments, so the progressions were closely monitored and necessary corrections were taken. It made us very upset and mad because our daughter's progression would have been caught in time if she could have received the follow up appointments. They were paid for in the initial fee.
On July 28, 2021, we went back to Dr. Mah office and demanded our deposit back for the new Ortho-K. They refunded our deposit. We asked the program coordinator if and when the office was open and if they accepted new patients during the pandemic. She told us that they reopened in June 2020 and they did accept new patients afterwards. We asked her why they had time to accept new patients but nobody called us to reschedule our appointments. Her first answer was that they did not call anybody back because they did not know if their patients wanted to come back during the pandemic. I asked her if that is a part of their job and responsibility to call and ask, so she changed her answer by saying that they called a few patients after reopening and they all said no, so they stopped calling. We were really shocked by her answers and "honesty". We told her that we are extremely disappointed with the way that Dr. Mah handled our case and probably many others. She told us that it has nothing to do with Dr. Mah because it was not his job to make appointments or reschedule them. We told her that Dr. Mah is fully responsible for the whole operation not just the eye examination.
Of course, she apologized a few times for what have happened to our daughter. Unfortunately, her apologies won't bring back time. We think it was very brave of her trying to take all blames. However, we suspect it was a corporate decision not to call anybody anymore because they got too busy. As a professional optometrist, Dr. Mah and his office should know very well that the follow up appointments are essential and crucial part of the Ortho-K program. We wish we knew that before.
We trusted Dr. Mah but he has betrayed our trust. He did not demonstrate a reasonable and necessary care for us and did not fulfill his duties as a doctor. We decided to take our daughter somewhere else but we want other people to know what have happened to us under Dr. Mah's watch. We sincerely hope that Dr. Mah and his office will reflect on their inaction and start calling patients whose appointments were canceled. Their lack of responsibility and lack of action will harm patients' health, which they can't bring back. read more
