THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU GIVE YOUR MONEY TO THIS PRACTICE... If you think you will need to ever call your doctor, or need help outside of making an appointment, do not go here.
My family and I have been going to Bethesda Physicians for years. After a serious brain injury my father had, I took over helping with his medical care. He was seen by Dr. Chretien and I was a patient of Dr. Fine's.
Every time I had to get in touch with Dr. Chretien, it took me calling and leaving 3-4 messages or more to get a call back. In one instance, he went to see her for bloodwork and for her to assess my father, as his health was declining. We were told we would have the results Friday. On Friday he started declining further, at which point we started calling the doctor's office around noon. Their hours stated on the phone were until 5 PM, so I kept trying to call. Finally I chose to call the pager operator who said they would page the doctor on call (who happened to be Dr. Chretien). After waiting another hour with no call back, I had them page her again. This went on every 15-30 minutes until she finally called us back at 5:30 PM. Her excuse, "This is the one time a year we take our staff out to lunch for the holidays." So an important page in which we were going to ask for his lab results and determine if we should take him to the ER went unanswered because she was at a five hour lunch event. Needless to say we took him to the ER where he was admitted.
After his discharge, I continued to be in contact with her office. Most recent event, I called and left 5 messages, calling every day, to ask her what we should do as my dad had not had a bowel movement in 8+ days. Finally after getting a call back, I made an appointment and he was seen by her. He scheduled per her request an abdominal x-ray which he had on a Monday morning. Monday evening I called to inquire on results, no call back. Tuesday, same thing, received a call at 7 PM saying they do not have any results and if she didn't get them by Wednesday she would call me to get the name of where he went so they could contact them. Wednesday no call. Thursday I called, ask the receptionist if SHE can tell me if they at least have the results, she says she does not see them. So I take it upon myself to call CRA where he had his xray, where they tell me they sent the results via fax on Tuesday but will send them again. I called AGAIN on Thursday afternoon at which point Dr. Chretien finally gave me the results. I told her I work in healthcare (previously in Radiology) and it should not take 4 days to get plain film results, and her response was "well we have them now and in any event they show nothing." Pretty much dismissing the fact that she has completely ignored my many calls and somehow making it ok due to the fact that his x-ray had normal results.
I finally decided I had had enough, and thought I would try to stay within the practice and switch doctors to the physician I saw, Dr. Fine. After leaving her four messages to get a call back to explain the troubles I have been having with Dr. Chretien, she finally took my call. Not only did she say they will not switch doctors, but she did not bother to apologize for the horrible behavior of her associate nor for her not bothering to return my calls. I am so appalled by how my father and I have been treated, I will never give this practice another cent of my money or a minute of my time. I have wasted so much time and energy trying to get in touch with doctors we pay hundreds of dollars for, and I cannot believe their lack of professionalism.
You should be able to trust that a message to your doctor will get answered, especially in the event of an emergency. You cannot even trust this practice to return pages for emergencies. Take your business elsewhere.
To make matters worse, I filled out a request for records to be sent to my dad's new provider on 1/18/17. I called today, 2/7/17 to check on the request, and had the DISpleasure of talking to someone at the front desk named Tonya. She was extremely rude and unprofessional, and told me she COULD NOT help me figure out why we have not received his records. She rudely told me I would have to contact the rep for the company that handles records requests. As an Administrator for an outpatient clinic, I was appalled by how she talked to me, ESPECIALLY given that they expect us as a patient to PAY for our records. read more