Given how difficult it is to find a really great primary care physician, I'm surprised that there…read morearen't more reviews of them here. Five years ago I got my first grownup job in this area, and was presented with the enormous task of picking a new doctor. I had very little help as most of my friends were mostly accustomed to student health services, the essential but terrible health care of grad. students in any local university. Being unceremoniously presented with a phone book sized listing of providers from Blue Cross & Blue Shield provided nothing in the way of actual assistance in making a decision. I didn't choose Dr. Holt exactly randomly, but my criteria wasn't exactly scientific. I looked for listings that were: close to my apartment at the time, female, fairly young and with an American sounding name. In short somebody who I felt I could relate to and would feel comfortable asking questions of. I was more than willing to try multiple doctors until I found one that I could be comfortable with. As it turned out I didn't have to. I hit the jackpot on my first try with Dr. Holt. Dr. Holt is extremely thorough, taking actual time to have a conversation with me about medical concerns and also about general lifestyle choices. As a fairly healthy person I generally see her only 1-2 times a year, but she always appears to remember the conversations that we've had on previous visits. Her warmth and genuineness match the knowledge and skill she brings to her profession. Also, I don't want to over-share, but the ladies out there will understand the difficulty in finding a PCP who is willing to perform basic GYN care. Dr. Holt does both, and I love not having to keep two separate annual checkups. There's also a lab center on site. So convenient! I've had pretty good results in getting 'sick' appointment, never having to wait for more than 48 hours. However, I debated taking this review down a star because of how long it takes to make appointments for physicals or routine checkups. (Sometimes up to a month.) In the end I decided that all of the positives FAR outweigh this one minor issue.

I've been a patient of Dr Holt's for over 15 years now. I dread the day she retires and have to…read morefind a new primary care doctor, although that shouldn't be anytime soon! I hear stories about primary care doctors that rush, are impersonal, and don't leave the patient feeling like they matter. Dr. Holt couldn't be more opposite. She remembers all the details of not only my medical history, but my personal life as well. She listens to my concerns and creates treatment plans to address them. Three of my friends have become patients and rave about her too. If you can get in to see her, do it.

Over the past year, I have had to visit urgent care several times, and Dr. Harding and Dr. Hegg…read morehave consistently delivered an extraordinary level of care. Every visit felt thoughtful, unhurried, and genuinely patient-centered. They listen carefully, ask the right questions, and explain next steps clearly, which creates an immediate sense of trust and reassurance. What truly sets them apart is their judgment and attentiveness. They never rush, never dismiss concerns, and always treat you like a person rather than a chart. Because of the quality of care they provide, I willingly drive a considerable distance out of my way to be seen by them. That alone says a great deal. I only wish they could be my primary care physicians. The professionalism, accountability, and compassion they consistently demonstrate represent the highest standard of medicine, and it is rare to find clinicians who combine expertise with such genuine care for their patients.

Horrible Billing Practices - Proceed with Extreme Caution…read more I debated whether or not to write this, but after my experience at MGH Chelsea Urgent Care (151 Everett Ave, Chelsea, MA) in June 2024, I feel compelled to warn others. I had tested positive for COVID at home and was experiencing symptoms. Before going in, I called and spoke with both my insurance (United Healthcare) and someone at the location. I was assured multiple times that my out-of-pocket cost would be a $75 copay--nothing more. When I arrived, I confirmed this again, handed over my insurance card, and was told I was all set. I explained clearly to the provider that I already tested positive--twice--for COVID. Despite that, they proceeded with another COVID test, a flu test, blood work, and even a chest X-ray. I questioned whether all of this was necessary and voiced my concerns at the time. A few days later, I received a bill for $3,875. Shocked, I immediately called MGH billing, only to be told they hadn't even submitted the bill to my insurance yet. I thought the issue would be resolved after that. Instead, within a week, I received a new bill--this time for $3,075. I asked repeatedly for an itemized breakdown and a quote for what these services would have cost without insurance. No one followed up. I was bounced between departments, eventually told to call the urgent care directly--only to find out it's not a true urgent care but an outpatient clinic. That distinction apparently made all the difference with insurance. To make matters worse, the resubmitted claim to insurance totaled $5,200--again, for what should have been a simple COVID verification. The service itself was friendly, but the amount of unnecessary testing felt excessive and, frankly, exploitative. I've spent countless hours fighting this through my insurance provider, and no one seems willing to take responsibility or help resolve the issue. I will never return to this location and strongly advise others to avoid MGH Chelsea Urgent Care at all costs. I'll be sticking with AFC Urgent Care moving forward--this would have never happened there. Proceed with caution.

Elizabeth Kwo, currently a resident at CHA Somerville Primary Care, is one of the best doctors I've…read morehad the pleasure of working with. It's always super frustrating when a doctor listens to your first 5 words, comes up with a conclusion (no matter how correct it may be), and then spends the rest of the session and your words reinforcing their opinion of that conclusion. It's a basic failure of the scientific method. You don't skew and cherrypick the data to follow your initial conclusion, like in middle school science class. You look at all the data first, and then come up with possible conclusions. Dr. Kwo passes this acid test with five stars. Not only was she kind and attentive while listening to my descriptions, she also made me privy to her thought process and helped me rule out any serious concerns by patiently explaining each and every single one. As if this is not stellar enough, today I phoned the primary care office with an urgent question while feeling very sick and had to resort to leave a message at the front desk for her. Getting an appointment would have taken too long. Just an hour later she called me back, and answered my questions on the phone for a whole 15 minutes! When I thanked her, she casually replied "Oh sure, there's no way we were going to let you go through that by yourself". I think that sums it up nicely. Primary care, like teaching, is one of those things where being a good academic is very necessary but not sufficient by itself. You also need a healthy dose of understanding, empathy, care and compassion. Dr Kwo has both, with a healthy dose of common sense too. I don't know if she plans to keep doing primary care after her residency, but I sure hope she does for my own selfish purposes :)

Internal Medicine Associates (IMA) are simply the best doctor(s) and medical staff I have ever had…read morethe pleasure of being a patient of. Like Yelp puts it "As good as it gets!" When I relocated to MA I began my search for a doctor. Knowing that Drs accepting patients are hard to come by in this state, I opted to search for, and become a patient of, a resident at MGH. I could not have made a better decision. I have been more than pleased with everything. Everything is excellent but here are a few excellent things I'd like to highlight: 1) the quality of care 2) the professional manner of both the doctors and all office staff 3) the ease with which I can book appointments 4) the friendly nature of everyone at IMA 5) the responsiveness of both doctors and staff to my needs. As I mentioned, my primary care physician (PCP) is a resident at MGH. He is a licensed doctor, and 99% of the length of my visit is spent discussing my issue(s) with my PCP. However, being a resident, he is overseen by a senior-level doctor within IMA with whom he discusses my issues and then settles upon the appropriate treatment. It's like being seen by two doctors for the price of one. Additionally, it never seems like my doctor is in a rush or hurrying our appointment (I suspect as a resident he has more time for patients but can't really say for sure). Quite literally I could go on and on about the great things about IMA. I would recommend IMA to any friend of mine looking for excellent care, excellent facilities, and excellent service. An absolute must for those seeking doctors who are warm, professional, intelligent, and ideal all-around.

i have been a patient of ima and mgh for nearly 50 years and thankful for the care and…read morecompassion-dr arons is my pcp-dr guiney my cardiologist and all so many others from the staff top to bottom--thanks-

I've been seeing Dr Lytle for over 5 years after a long wait to get into her practice. She is…read moresimply the best health care provider that I've had. She has a terrific bedside manner and is extremely thorough. I was skeptical about the BMC now BU Medical Center vs the more notorious Boston hospitals which I've also used and must say that the level of care and the specialists throughout the BU system have been much better!

I have been receiving primary care here on for about four years. All of my interacts with primary…read morecare providers have been pleasant, but the office admin and logistics is laughably poor. I was looking to get a sick visit scheduled in late October, called during working hours and no one picked up. I left a message and tried again the next day. Same result. I ended up getting a call back 4 days later, and the nurse who I spoke with was lovely, but they insisted I come in for a well visit first. They then scheduled in mid February (their earliest availability being almost 4 months out). That kind of sucked but I tolerated it, because I do like getting my primary care here. About 2 weeks before my visit I received a voicemail that my visit had been cancelled because of a scheduling issue. They indicated I should cal back to reschedule. I did call back, and reschedule for the following week. This next bit is a true display of laughable incompetence. Following that reschedule, I got ANOTHER voicemail from the office saying they're no longer accepting new patients, and because I haven't been seen in 2 years I was considered new. I implored that I'd been trying to get a visit for 3+ months and that would have been within 2 years of my last visit. They said, I was considered a new Laurent regardless, so I wouldn't be receiving a visit. By this point i did some self reflection and realized: the stress, work/travel re-scheduling, and overall sever frustration I endured trying to get a primary care visit is just not worth it for me.

Okay - I should be serious if I'm reviewing a doctor, this could actually be useful to people and…read morecould affect his business. On top of that please note that I know very little about PCPs and the healthcare system in the USA so I feel a little under-qualified to review the only PCP I've ever had. But having said all that Steven Abreu is great. He's talkative, knowledgeable, reassuring and always seems to be in a happy mood. His attitude is very calming without any condescension, which is exactly what you need from a PCP. So far he's pulled stuff out of my ear and helped me out by back-dating a referral I didn't get when I didn't know the whole system. I have to drop a star because getting an appointment can be a real pain. Sometimes the wait is 2 weeks.

I simply cannot say enough about Dr. Abreu. He's kind, supportive, friendly, knowledgeable,…read morepatient and understanding. He's an absolute pleasure to speak with. His demeanor is friendly and positive. He helps turn what seems to be a negative situation into one that's manageable to deal with. I consider myself lucky to be a patient of his, and lucky that I was paired with him. His staff is friendly and I hardly ever wait for an appointment. I'm typically out of his office in 20 minutes. If you're looking for a quality doctor I recommend seeing Dr. Abreu. He's a one in a million physician.

My initial impression of Dr. Holtzman during my first and only exam on 10/28/24 was not an…read moreentirely positive one. I found his non-medical questions about my personal life unnecessarily intrusive. (I'd already been asked and answered a couple of those questions online as part of the required Zocdoc new patient intake by his office.) One of these was "What is your sexual orientation?" As with Zocdoc, I told him I was straight. He replied with a smile: "Maybe a straight guy who also sleeps with men?" (I believe his precise words were "Heterosexual meaning you like just women, or women and men?") Which left me slack-jawed. A couple unspoken thoughts crossed my mind in quick succession: "Huh? Wouldn't such a guy be a bisexual?" Followed by a recognition of his obvious insinuation, which I found as unprofessional as it was inaccurate. It may be appropriate for a physician to ask a patient's sexual orientation today (I'm 71), but hardly professional to suggest a different orientation to the patient. His next question was "When did you last have sex?" despite the fact that I came to this first office visit presenting no complaints, let alone symptoms, that might suggest an STD or anything else of a sexual nature. Frankly, I had to wonder what the dude's agenda was. He insisted on giving me a referal to his dermatologist colleague, despite my telling him I had seen two dermatologists ---working together--less than a year earlier as a part of the excision of a couple benign facial blemishes. Then when the results of my Qwest lab bloodwork of a week later came back, liver enzymes AST and ALT in my blood were abnormally high, so I messaged him for his interpretation. Unlike my previous PCPs, who would offer a brief interpretation via their patient portals, his terse response was: "See me." Which I interpreted as another office visit. Fortunately, I subsequnetly remembered that I had taken large doses of acetaminophen at the time of the blood draws due to cold symptoms, which temporarily elevates these enzymes' levels. (Mystery solved and money saved.) But I noted his attempt to turn my simple portal inquiry into a billable office visit, not (in fairness to him) unusual in today's profit-focused US medical industry. As physician/author Elizabeth Rosenthal has written: "The 'first do no harm' directive has been replaced with 'first leave no money on the table' ". In the year that followed, he cooperatively issued for me two gastroenterologist referrals with a recommendation for a colonoscopy, (although I should note that the first referral was for a gastroenterologist conncted to a facility from which a hospital approved post-sedated procedure ride home was unavailable to me, which limitation I had made very clear to him during the 10/2024 exam, thus the need for the second referral. In summary, I had no reason to question Dr. Holtzman's overall medical competence, but also no desire to remain in his practice.

STAY AWAY! Completely disorganized and incompetent. Allowed me to book online with zero flags and…read morethen the morning of my appointment left me a voicemail telling that me new patients can't book online and cancelled my appointment for which I needed immediate medical care. Then when I saw a PCP (SHRINKHALA SWAROOP, NP) and had made it clear which insurance I had, the PCP referred me to a specialist that was outside my network and I am in the process of dealing with the hassle of trying to not pay $500 for this. I have never had a PCP refer me to a non-network specialist. Big surprise and I'm enduring a headache and pursuing legal options. Not impressed.

Dr. Keller is an excellent general practitioner who has a degree in internal medicine from UMass…read moreWorcester's medical school. He's a down to earth guy who listens to patients meticulously and makes very good decisions while providing excellent care of you. My first meeting with him was excellent and he figured he'd double check everything and had me get a battery of blood and urine tests. He's very thorough in everything and I find that to be a good quality that some doctors lack. Highly recommended.

Great Dr and practice in Downtown Boston. My PCP for last…read more10+years. Knowledgeable, thorough, organized and caring. Been with practice for 25+ years. Highly recommended.

Dr. Peters was referred to me by a co-worker since our office is near her office. She came very…read morehighly recommended. I've since seen her twice, once for a physical and the second time for a gyno screening. Gyno's are always awkward - to me anyways. Dr. Peters was great at both appointments. For my physical, she went through everything. I was surprised at how detailed she got during my health history. It was reassuring. I have very little faith in doctors; I think the healthcare system is broken and they simply don't have the time or energy to invest when they're seeing so many patients each day. That being said, Dr. Peters is much better than my last two doctors (yes, I move around a lot). I'm a fan.

Good to know you can come here on Sunday morning at 9 AM and get seen by a doctor within minutes…read more I recommend this place if you have to see someone quickly. There is plenty of free parking in their parking lot, there is a receptionist on the first floor to give directions where to go or help with any other needs. Beth Israel's's Urgent Care is located on the second floor, there is an elevator a wheelchair if needed. The office suite is clearly marked urgent care, very important. If you are stressed or in a situation you don't want to have to second guess where to go. My doctor examined me thoroughly and had a medical assistant. My exam was quick. This is urgent care and being quick is a good thing. . I did not have to go to an emergency room for which could take hours maybe even days to be seen, especially at a non Beth Israel emergency room. Even then, taking up the space and time in an emergency room makes it difficult for those people that are really in crisis with a high need medical issue. If I needed an emergency room, BI Urgent Care would have sent me or made sure I got there safely. So this was the perfect option for me rather than waiting for an appointment after a minor car accident. Or emergency room. I'm very pleased with Beth Israel, as medical provider in all areas of care including surgeries. Hands down, the best option. Discharge/service note was giving to me at record speed and my medication was called in in the same manner. I've been coming for my primary care to this location for several years. Professional staff at the front desk make my visits run smooth. the doctor examined me, I felt confident in his ability to assess me. Today was pleasant and efficient I was in and out of there quickly. And that's what I want when you have been in an accident or some other life incident.

I called my primary and was advised to go to the closest Urgent Care…read more I was seen very quickly. The support staff, nurse, doctor, and XRay tech were all great. Within a short time I had a diagnosis and meds were called in to my pharmacy. I'm on the mend now and could not be more grateful. Super-easy access on and off Route 1 via Route 16 eastbound. Ample parking. A lab and XRay facility right there. A pharmacy right next door. Very comforting to have this facility nearby.