I had already visited this office twice because I was referred by my doctor and it was conveniently located close to my home. Unfortunately, my most recent experience was very disappointing. I called to schedule an echocardiogram appointment for my baby, and the receptionist was rude and dismissive. She cut me off while I was explaining why I was calling, did not ask for my name or my child's information, and quickly told me to call the main line instead. She rushed through the phone number and seemed more interested in ending the call than helping me. As a parent trying to arrange an important medical appointment, I expected basic courtesy and professionalism. This experience left a very negative impression, and because of it, I will not be returning to this office. read more

About the nastiest staff I have ever encountered. I was in the waiting room and one of his employees asked me to come into the office area. Then, she asked me if i could fix her bracelet. I was taken aback, and not wanting to cause trouble, I did . she then said "see, men are good for something!" Dr. Fernandez social skills were also on par with this staff's. The office should be ashamed of themselves. As parents, we are there because we love our children, not to be abused and belittled. read more

Please do yourself a favor and find another doctor. You will not receive bills in the mail, you will only get notices when they've been referred to a collection agency with an additional 30-40% charge tacked on. The doctor himself is rude and condescending. Don't even think about asking him a question or, God forbid, a clarification on what he has just said. Still, we would put up with it, if it wasn't for the absolute incompetence in office administration. read more

Find another specialist. The front desk staff is incredibly rude & this Doctor only cares about money. He will push you to come in as much/ as often as he can (I was high risk with no issues, not even one abnormal ultrasound but was pushed to come weekly or biweekly). In peak covid. He then not only sent me to collections for a 1200 deductible, sought 30% collections on top and tried to file suit. Not cool. read more

PLEASE MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO PAY ONLINE. Your office NEVER answers the number on your bill. This is not a way to do business, especially in 2019. Besides that you failed to reissue my bill after insurance spoke to you back in June. Instead I received no updates until after auditing (2018) only to get the SAME bill (unrevised) and to be told I'm overdue. This is poor communication. Just take my payment and go away. I will never go to St.Barnabas again after all the unnecessary scares and subsequent bills. Add: I DO NOT GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO POST ANY INFORMATION ABOUT MYSELF OR MY CHILD. ANY INFORMATION SHARED PUBLICLY WILL BE REPORTED read more

My wife was referred to Dr Fernandez by her OBGYN. We made an appointment and during that appointment the doctor was unable to obtain any clear ultrasounds of the baby's heart. We left the appointment without any results or answers and were still charged full price for the visit when I feel like he should have paid us for wasting our time. I would not recommend going to doctor Fernandez for any reason. Doesn't seem right to be charged for a service we didn't receive. read more

This is THE WORST doctor's visit I have ever been to or heard about in my entire life! I will never go back there even if my life or my kids life depended on it! I came here for a fetal echo on July 14 2020. I was 32 weeks pregnant. I was checked in and guided to the exam room. The receptionist/ nurse wouldn't do anything and was telling me to wash my hands, pull the paper onto the bed, lay there, and have my belly showing for the ultrasound - all of this before the dr came in or met me. Anyways I did that. The doctor comes into the room and without an introduction or a hello sits and starts the ultrasound. He started talking about my referral and going on and on about fetal echos and fetal cardiology as if he was giving a lecture and I was just a prop or a guinea pig. After a good 10 minutes of him rambling and bombarding me with medical information I asked a question and his immediate reaction was "unbelievable.. if you would just let me finish talking". I was beyond shocked to get such cold and unprofessional bedside treatment from a doctor nevertheless. I've had experiences with technicians that were a hundred times better and more informative. After wasting 30 minutes filled with useless raw information that wasn't even targeted towards my situation and me lying uncomfortably with my heavy pregnant belly, the dr tells me that he can't really do a proper diagnosis because of the stage of pregnancy I'm at and the baby's size and position - information which he knew from my file before I even came in. Frustrated I said well if he knew that was the case, he or his receptionists shouldve advised me of that over the phone when making my appointment rather than wasting my time and money on a pointless ultrasound. Once the ultrasound was complete I asked him a couple medical questions to get his medical advise - after all that's what I'm there for! - and he said he wouldn't answer my questions! He told me to clean up and leave.. WHILE HE WAS STILL SITTING THERE! What an invasion of privacy and extremely low etiquette from a doctor. He shouldn't even be called a dr; it's more than just a degree or a license FYI! read more

I had the most horrendous experience visiting Dr. Fernandes. Due to family history and a referral from our pediatrician, our son needed to see a pediatric cardiologist. I made an appointment (with a long wait) for earlier this year. When the receptionist called to confirm the appointment she inquired about my son's age and his vaccination schedule and confirmed I was all set. The appointment begun as scheduled, the doctor put the ultrasound gel on my baby and my son started crying. I had a difficult time calming him down and the doctor didn't offer a break nor paused the exam. With a condescending voice he questioned why would I bring such a crying baby for a heart exam, he started questioning whether I fed my son according to the instructions an hour before the exam- I said that I was referred by our pediatrician hence I came in and yes I did feed him and changed him. The doctor was getting very frustrated as my son was moving around as he was performing the scan (still no break offered)- he kept repeating that he can't get a good image. The doctor proceeded to question as to why I would I bring my son three weeks after his vaccines, as for sure he is still aggravated and remembers the shots and I did not make a good judgement call bringing him in. The doctor was very frustrated with me and my son- he was not trying to be gentle or change positions or talk to the baby in a calm voice. YES- I fed him, yes I changed him, yes I tried making him not move, BUT he is 3 months old- babies DO cry and you are a pediatric cardiologist! This maybe lasted 10 Mins and the doctor left, then the office receptionist started putting EKG equipment on my son- he continued to cry. The doctor never came in after that. As I was leaving, I mentioned I have an appointment with him the following Monday as a follow up for my three year old daughter (there was an issue during my pregnancy that was detected and I was seeing Dr Fernandes - both him and my pediatrician recommended that I follow up with my daughter). Dr. Fernandes responded that if my daughter will also be moving around and not keeping still- not to come in and he can check her when she's older as the issue is not urgent. He sounded so frustrated with me. I responded that I waited a few months for this appointment and I already made arrangements as it is in six days and my daughter is really good and patient during doctors visits. He didn't respond to this. The very next morning I received a call from his office that something has come up and Dr. Fernandes has an emergency (in 5 days), will not be in the office and can not see me on Monday and that my appointment has been cancelled.... The next available appointment can be in a month if do decide to come in. On Monday, I called Dr Fernandes' office at the time of my cancelled appointment for my daughter and asked whether he is in the office. The receptionist said yes he is, when I asked why my appointment was cancelled she put me on hold and sounded very flustered. When she returned she said he only had a half day emergency... I was very shaken up after the appointment and just so sad that such an unkind individual chose to pursue career in pediatrics. Few weeks later I received a hefty bill for this 15 mi session. Needless to say I switched doctors. I called Dr. Lichter's office and the receptionist booked an hour appointment for each of my children- saying an ample time is scheduled for each patient since it is assumed that a lot of children might cry and not cooperate right away. Our appointments went so smoothly, the doctor was so gentle and warm (total opposite of Dr. Fernanses) my son did not cry at all but actually smiled ! Additionally, I posted this story on my local moms forum and I had women flooding my inbox with similar stories !!! Please, please avoid Dr. Fernandes at all costs. read more

Incompetent Billing - Rude Staff - Condescending Doctor While there is nothing bad to say about Dr. Fernandes' expertise as a pediatric cardiologist, the poor level of customer service and patient care is reason enough to seek a different specialist. Take a look at the reviews on Google and Yelp, and you will see a pattern of billing mismanagement, which ends up penalizing the patients. We got notified almost 2 years after our son's visit that we are being sued due to an unpaid bill from 2018. We have no record of the bill and because it is over 2 years old, our insurance has "purged" their records, leaving us with few options other than to pay the bill and collections/courts fees, which we have already done. We pay our bills, and if we ever got proper notification of the bill, it would have been paid two years ago. The staff will say they made every attempt to contact us about the unpaid bill. I keep every invoice for as far back as 4 years and have no record of it, nor have we ever been called by their office. When we received the lawsuit from the lawyer, we reached out to Dr. Fernandes' office. The person who answered the phone immediately cut us off and told us to speak to the lawyer - no other info given - and they just hung up. You will also have to waste most of your time during the day trying to get the lawyer to answer his phone. All of these actions amount to delay tactics to get patients to pay up or face legal action. You will get no help from the office staff. They are rude, as can be seen by most of the business responses you see here on Google. Dr. Fernandes has no bedside manner, so while he is a great pediatric cardiologist, you will get no answers to any of your questions. I don't think he ever looked at me directly whenever I asked him a question about my son's diagnosis. Trying to ask him to explain his diagnosis of our son's heart in layman's terms is virtually impossible. He will just cut you off even before you can finish asking the question. That's not very helpful, as you're left in the dark as a parent of an infant, managing their care. As this is a review, obviously this is just our family's opinion on the type of service you will receive from Dr. Fernandes and his staff. However, when our opinion is corroborated by multiple reviews all saying the same thing about billing mismanagement and rude staff, it is worth being very cautious in choosing to do business with this doctor. read more

Believe the reviews folks and stay away if you can. The doctor was fine, but the billing department here is at best incompetent, at worst criminal. I paid my co-pay and submitted insurance info, but about a year later I got a bill saying I still owe them. There seemed to have been some kind of issue with my insurance company, and after a few phone calls back and forth with the office and my insurance company, the last I heard is that the office was still working it out with my insurance company. Fast forward a few months, and I get a bill from a debt collector. No further follow up by phone or mail from the office, just bam - sent to a debt collector. I'm one to always pay my bills, so this was a shock. I just assumed since I never heard back from the office, they were able to sort it out with the insurance company. Now I'm going to pay this bill just to get them out of my hair and to not further affect my credit, even though I already paid them and my insurance company continues to maintain I do not owe them any more money than my co-pay. Because I had a complicated pregnancy, I had multiple doctors appointments with various doctors, and never had an issue with any of them except this one. If you can, try to see another doctor just to avoid the risk of being gouged and having your credit negatively impacted. If you have to this doctor, proceed with caution and stay on top of the billing department because they will not. Again, unfortunate because the doctor is fine. read more

I had several good experiences at this office with Dr. Fernandes. He is very informative and thorough. He answered all of my questions and made sure to ask me twice if I wanted to know anything else. I am grateful for his practice and experience and especially the equipment there. I would recommend him to friends and family. read more

I wanted to take the time to update my review in light of the doctor's response to my review. This type of unprofessional response from a doctor is why no sane person would utilize this practice for their medical care. Even the summary for the business is full of content by this doctor making nasty comments about reviews of his practice that are less then favorable. There are negative reviews because the staff he has, as well as he himself, are disrespectful people who do not provide care and respect for their clients. We followed up with a doctor in the same building, but a different practice. They were wonderful. I am not an uneducated, manipulative or nasty person. I simply demand to be tested respectfully and properly by medical professionals and believe that professionals need to be accountable for their actions as well as those who they employ. Given the tone and response from this doctor, clearly the staff are taking their tone and condescending attitudes from the doctor in charge. read more

DR. JOHN FERNANDES SAVED MY SON'S LIFE. He discovered that my son had a very heart defect at birth that most doctors would have missed and quickly rushed him from NJ to NYU in NY where a Dr. Stephen Colvin operated on him and repaired his rare heart defect. Sadly Dr.Colvin passed away. read more

Scathing is an adequate word to describe this reveiw. Everything about this Doctor and his office staff is not up.to any sane person's standards. His receptionist was too busy with her phone and her game too awnser my questions. The paper work was a overly invasive. After handing in the paperwork in, after I was told it was required that I give them my husband's ssn (he wasn't there.) I was brought to an office and questioned about why I was referred. There was no greeting, the Dr Fernandez refused to shake my hand. He was cold, he mumbled, and seemed annoyed that he actually had to have human contact. He also has a very very thick Indian accent. Which confused me, because his last name was Fernandez. Later on in the appointment I was brought into a small room, with out a female nurse present, the door was closed, the light was turned off and my fetal echocardiogram was started. I was referred to the doctor by my perinatal group, because of my gestational diabetes. I will be the first to admit my bmi is not perfect. He mentioned how over weight I was seven different times. Between talking down to me and explaining how it was irresponsible for me to be pregnant. I go to.the gym four times a week and my A1C had gone down during my pregnancy. I was then rid it didn't make I difference to my fetus. To close I will say that he was informative, however that is hardly enough to recomend this Doctor. I recommend that you search out any other paediatric cardiologist in the state of NJ before seeing this man. read more