Saw Dr. Chang on what perhaps was a bad day--his whole office in Straub Honolulu was well behind schedule--so take this review with a grain of salt.
The staff had either overbooked patients, or perhaps, due to logistical problems with one appointment, the others had stacked up. By the time I was there, a few minutes before my scheduled time, they were running 40 minutes back. When I finally got to seeing him, it was a full hour after my original appointment.
The good: The office staff was quite informative and communicative about the situation, letting us in the waiting room know that they had fallen behind. They estimated the amount of minutes for each one who'd asked, and told me how many patients had been still waiting ahead of my time. They allowed me to go downstairs and get a brunch and drink at the coffee kiosk, then called my cell when they were a bit caught up.
They also gave patients free Starbucks certificates, good for same-day use at the hospital's cafe and/or kiosk downstairs, either for a small (aka tall) coffee or a soda. Nice touch, showing that they cared about how we'd been inconvenienced.
Also good: his staff included Ana the physician's assistant, who basically did my intake, working off a detailed form I had to fill out when I checked in. She talked to me and gathered further details, and her demeanor was polite, empathetic, and professional. Overall, the staff seemed to be managed and organized quite well.
She spent maybe 20-25 minutes with me, then Dr. Chang himself about 10-15, mostly just confirming that my injury had healed since its height of pain/harm, and prescribing some PT plus giving other minor instructions for my continued getting-better (darn, gotta wean off of those pain meds). He was looking at the x-rays taken about an hour earlier when I first arrived, but did not explain what he saw to me or how the data showed my injury or lack thereof. [I've had really good doctors focus on long-term patterns and use x-rays to talk about changing hard-to-alter behavior, even if they don't show immediate problems.] It felt rushed, but I had the sense there was a bit of triage going on, and others in the waiting room might have had more pressing ortho medical situations (lots of elderly folk and people on crutches, making me not the only one). He was good to ask whether I got all my questions answered, and I said I did. I can't say he was bad or uncaring or unprofessional; rather, that he tried the best he could in the short time we had.
I had actually wanted to inquire about the longer-term issues of how my back and shoulder tightness might be related to the tightness of my IT band and calf, resulting in injuries to the whole system of muscles and ligaments around the knee, etc., but had the sense that they, as a team, were focused on immediate pains and obvious injuries, not so much about deeper structural patterns of movement and physical behavior. Which, in my experience, is standard for traditional Western medicine.
Oh well, off to my various teams of alternative healers, for that.
A small gripe: he prescribed PT and massage, but the staff didn't write down the massage part in my final after visit summary report. Turns out, my insurance doesn't cover massage unless it's also by the PT person. Wish he'd said that or known that, as I'd wanted to go to my regular PT person, who doesn't do massage, and one of my acupuncturists, who does. When I asked her about this, she said, your insurance doesn't cover unless I also do PT. She's one of the state's experts on insurance billing and alternative treatments, so she knows her stuff. My insurance is very common and popular in Hawai'i, so this should be something an ortho doc knows, don'tcha think?
Competent, communicative, decently caring enough. But again: perhaps not the best day for the office; maybe if it had been more on-time, we'd have more talking about those patterned behavioral and longer-term issues. read more
