If it were an option to give Dr. Dembo and his practice a zero I would. First off, I never write…read morereviews, but I feel that I need to warn anyone considering seeing him about his unprofessional demeanor and his aggressiveness pushing product at you. Not to mention, his inability to provide quality care. I have had annual eye exams for the past 20 years, and never have I had a more miserable experience.
I had my eye exam with Dr. Dembo in October of 2016. I was looking for a doctor close to home, as my old optometrist had left the practice I had been going to for years. My husband also came with me at this time to have an annual exam as well. At first, everything seemed as it should be. The office space is nice and the doctors assistant that helped with our Optomap testing was very kind. My husband went in with the doctor first, while I waited outside. Then it was my turn, and up to this point everything had been normal but, that was soon to change.
As Dr. Dembo started the exam, he made small talk, asking about why I was in, and where I worked. As soon as he found out that I worked in sales he started talking to me about optical sales in his office. He didn't understand why it was so hard for someone to pick out a pair of frames, that it was so easy. I had worn my glasses to the appointment, knowing that you're usually asked to remove your contacts right away. In an attempt to make me feel like I should get a new pair of glasses, he proceeded to tell me that my glasses looked "BITCHY". I was stunned. Never in my life have a had a doctor say such a thing.
Next thing that went wrong was when he went to put eye drops in my eyes. Immediately, my eyes started to burn and tear. Not once did he say what the drops were for or, what their side effects might be. In all of my years of eye exams the doctor will tell you what they are about to do, what it's for and the side effects you might feel.
As if all of this wasn't enough, he decided it was now time for him to start pushing product on me. We started talking about contacts. He suggested a brand, left the room to grab a pair, came back and then put them in my eyes on his own, without asking if it was ok or if I'd prefer to do it myself. Again, not a comfortable experience. But that isn't the end of it... he takes the first pair out of my eyes, and tells me that today is my "lucky day", he's going to treat me. Again, not normal and I was feeling a tad bit violated at this point. He then proceeds to put a new pair of contacts in my eyes, not telling my what they are, or the difference from the first pair. He then instructs me to go across the room and take a look at my eyes in a mirror. Low and behold he had put colored contacts in my eyes and immediately tried to sell me on them.
At this point, I'm dying to leave the room and GTF out of the office. Dr. Dembo then asks me if I'm looking for a new pair of frames, as he's walking me out of the exam room, to which I let him know that I'm happy with what I have. In the waiting room, I meet my husband who has been talking to a new woman, who I assume is in charge of frames. Dr. Dembo then starts handing me several pairs of glasses at a time, trying to show me what will look good on me. The lady helping my husband then jumps in and starts handing me frames as well. I clearly wasn't interested, but yet they kept on pushing frames on me. Telling me that certain glasses looked so good on me when they clearly didn't. Finally, my husband and I break free of the frame frenzy and the doctor starts talking to his next victim. We go up to the front desk, pay ($500) for the exams and ask for our scripts. We get to the car and compare our experiences. I look over my prescriptions for both contacts and glasses, because yet again, Dr. Dembo didn't talk to me in the appointment about what he thought was going on with my eyes. I immediately notice something is wrong with my prescription, so I head back in to get some clarification on what has just happened. I am greeted by the lady helping us with frames and ask her a few questions about what is going on. She tells me, that according to the prescription, I have astigmatism. A detail that the doctor DID NOT mention once in the appointment, and a condition I have never been diagnosed with in the past (recently confirmed by another doctor that I don't have now). I start to explain to her that I don't understand where that is coming from and that I wasn't informed about it in the appointment. She then starts raising her voice at me, trying to explain away the astigmatism when I knew wholeheartedly that it was wrong, and that the doctor had f-ed up. We had just dropped over $500 for both appointments and this is how we were treated when we had questions. In addition to everything else, the sample contacts that my husband was given had expired 2 years ago...