Strap yourselves in...
TL:dr: If you value your time, your privacy, and your money, you'll save yourself some trouble and go somewhere else for your dermatological needs.
Of my 117 Yelp reviews as of this writing, only 9 of them have been for one star - this place is just that bad.
To quote another review:
". . . if anyone is reading this review, please save yourself this headache. Don't ever try and do an appointment over lunch breaks, in the afternoon, in any time that you're pressed for time, or really [any time] at all."
I choose not to give my money to offices that treat patients this poorly - and I wouldn't have gone back this time, but my doctor sent me there and it had been a while so I forgot how horrible an experience visiting here can be.
How bad is it? To give you a general idea, of the 15 reviews posted as I write this (don't forget the 'not recommended' at the bottom of the page! Those can be very telling), 10 of them (around 70%) are 1- or 2-star reviews. Draw your own conclusions, but at those odds you're heading for a bad time.
Here's my review from today:
I finally left their office after spending an hour and 15 minutes waiting, ignored and unseen, in their tiny, cramped, and hot waiting room.
I do not exaggerate.
In fact, there were several times today while I was waiting during which all the 15 or so chairs in the waiting room were filled, and new arrivals had to stand in that tiny hot cramped room. I stood, to give an older gentleman my seat.
Previously I stopped going to this place for three reasons:
1) The equipment looks like it's from the Soviet era, by which I mean it appears ancient and outdated;
2) The walls between the rooms are paper thin and can't possibly satisfy the privacy requirements of HIPAA as you can hear everything said while you wait in one (often for long periods of time); and
3) The last time I was there I was waiting in a tiny Soviet-era medical room with the Soviet-era equipment, and I overheard two female doctors talking about getting the most money from patients - I believe they said something about holidays coming, so I must have been there in the late Fall last time as well.
I should add that at my visit today, after about an hour of waiting, the office manager took several opportunities to loudly proclaim that there was a long wait because of "walk-ins." In other words, "you regular patients are waiting so long because some people don't make appointments," by which she meant me, and my doctor who was trying to get me seen there. However I was not a walk-in: My doctor (in the same building) was concerned, and had arranged with them for me to be looked at immediately, and the receptionist was looking for someone to blame. When I attempted to communicate this to the office manager, she had a male employee come out to the waiting room to 'make sure everything was ok.' Talk about unnecessary confrontations. The mentality of the employees here is clearly "patients come second by far."
Never again.
If you read the other 1-star reviews you will see others have raised many of the same issues as I do here.
Unfortunately this last visit happened on a Friday afternoon, and I didn't have time to make another appointment with a different dermatologist, so I went home, untreated with whatever it was my primary care wanted to have them review. I suppose it'll keep till next week. Frustrating. Do yourself a favor and skip the experience, odds are will you have a horrible time.
PS. If you read the reply from their office to a one-star comment here on Yelp, you'll read unprofessional and snarky remarks from their manager directed to a patient who was also unhappy about how clearly you can hear everyone in the rooms ("We will suggest that our staff not eat potato chips since this is not healthy anyway. Thank you for that.").
This is the type of people who run this medical practice: Uncaring about honest concerns of patients, ready to laugh at them about those concerns, and unnecessarily confrontational with patients. Fun times.
PPS. "Thank you" Drs Kauffmann et al for calling me at my home in the evening to "get my perspective" on this as I believe you said in your message. However, this IS my perspective on it. Perhaps you might lavish some of this attention on the patients who are actually waiting around in your office. As for your likely HIPAA violations, maybe get some white noise generators. Y'know, so patients won't overhear the doctors speaking or eating potato chips. read more