First off, let me say I have been coming here for years, and think Dr. Benson is a wonderful doctor and loved his old staff. However, his office staff now can be terrible and make you feel awful, and unless you are persistent you will not be seen, and will not be given results of labs unless you call for them or have them drawn before your appointment. My most recent experience:
I made an appointment with the office 5 months ago because I have been getting sick quite a lot. The person answering the phone seemed irritated and annoyed with me, and even made irritated huffing noises into the phone because I didn't know what to say the appointment was for other than to find out why I've been sick 6 times in the last 4 months. I eventually asked to get a full physical with labs because she wasn't listening to me and talking to someone else while I was trying to explain my situation. The first physical available was 5 months out, so I requested some labs before then, mentioning a few specific symptoms I wanted checked out. She basically told me my concerns were unfounded but made the appointment anyway a week later, again sounding very annoyed.
I came in to the first appointment in Feb. early to give my new insurance card and again was treated like I was irritating the front desk by trying to give my card and pay. I was told nothing and sat down to wait until 15 minutes after my apt. time, when I was weighed and taken to a room. While I was in the waiting room, the two women at the desk were loudly discussing patients as well as their own personal lives. They were bad mouthing patients loudly in front of me, as if I were not even there. It sounded like the patient in question was a regular pain in the butt hypochondriac, but still, I think it was highly inappropriate for them to loudly talk about the phone call one of them had with her right in front of me. It makes me wonder if they do this with patients in the office as well? It seems like a breech of confidentiality to use someone's name and then talk about their conditions.
So, I go into my room and wait a while longer (Another 10-15 minutes because they were busy) and in comes Dr. Benson. He listens to my concerns, makes appropriate responses, reviews my file, and makes some suggestions. He has labs drawn then and sent out, and says that my symptoms could be one thing or many things and that it may be hard to track down the cause. I was told they would contact me if anything came up in the blood work. I left, and in doing so, overheard the front desk women talking about another patient loudly and rudely. I never heard back, so I assumed the blood work came back normal and waited for my physical.
Flash forward 5 months (yes I started this review in February and waited until now to finish): A few days before my physical I received a packet in the mail telling me to have my blood work done at Quest diagnostic 1-7 days before my physical. I did so (which took about two hours on a Monday at 10am) the day before my appointment. I went into the office a few minutes early and was greeted nicely by the front desk. The other desk woman came out and they discussed their personal lives again, as well as another doctor's office, but no talk of patients today. I was called back to my 9 am appointment on time, weighed, treated nicely, and put into a room to change.
Dr. Benson came in after only a few minutes and did a thorough physical exam. He again listened to my concerns, reviewed my chart, reviewed the blood work preliminary report and the report from Feb. and took the time to go over the results with me. He was able to rule out many causes of the symptoms and make suggestions as to what could be going on. It is very likely that three factors were adding up to my symptoms, and he gave me methods of helping those three factors to test out to see through trial and error if those were indeed the culprits. So far I believe Dr. Benson was dead on in his diagnosis, and I feel very relieved. He is a wonderful doctor who truly seems to care about his patients when they come in to see him.
I left feeling better about the office, and then came back and read the start of my review before finishing. All the feelings of how to front office treated me like a burden came back to me, and I realized that this review needed to be published. I know a few other people who come to Dr. Benson (including family members) who have experienced similar things with the front office and Dr. Benson. I give him 5 stars, but his front desk I'd give 1 star. Your doctor's office is where you go when you feel awful, and if they make you feel worse about yourself and belittle you, it is a terrible experience. Yes, Dr. Benson makes up for them, but the fact that when I get sick I every time stop and decide if I really feel bad enough to want to deal with his staff, and sometimes end up in urgent care a few days later because I decide no, that is not good! Front staff seriously needs work here. read more