Those of you that read my reviews of service providers will be familiar with my format. With licensed physicians I follow a different format. But before I discuss my overwhelmingly positive experience under the care of Dr. Hong and my extraordinary experience with his professional and courteous staff I must say I am perplexed as to how the finest ophthalmologist and office I have gone to in the last 30 years would receive a two and a half star rating.
First I base my rating on location. As a Pasadena resident I look for an office that is near a freeway or near a major medical center for the obvious convenience factor. Dr. Hong's office meets both those criteria. In fact when I called for my appointment, I spoke with Marie who provided me not only the address of the office but also counseled me on where the best place to park was and how to find the office was I exited the parking structure.
The second thing I consider in rating an doctor's office is does it have 'everything I need'. Now, in this case, since I needed an eye exam, was having problems with one of my eyes, was probably going to need new glasses and new contact lenses I wanted an office that could supply all those things. Dr. Hong' office met this criteria does. What I found especially refreshing is that although glasses and contact lenses CAN be purchased there is no hard sales push such as you find at other offices. You are free to leave with a written prescription if you so choose. I happened to fall in love with an absolutely beautiful Dior frame that I couldn't have found anywhere else and I purchased them for a VERY reasonable price.
The third thing I consider in rating a doctor's office is the staff. There are two staff members in Dr. Hong's office. Marie, who appears to both run the office and also has quite a depth of clinical expertise. She is charming, courteous, smart, professional and does her various jobs with a high level of expertise. Call management, reliability, follow up and response time are critical to me when it comes to my dealing with staff and frankly I would have to rate the staff in many offices down in threads to these very critical areas. I rate Marie and Jenna five stars in all of these areas.
Jenna works more with the fitting of the contact lenses and in the eye glasses room which is adjacent to the room where I had my exam. She is an excellent judge of what looks good and will tell you when MANY will not what does not fit your face, offering other solutions. This is especially important if you happen to be like me...someone with good taste but who has had an impeccable track record of bringing home eye glasses over my entire life that my family weakly says, "oh", or "its all about YOU liking them Mom, you're the one that's going to wear them". Sadly, we don't lie in my family, not even the tiny white ones. Jenna, like Marie, has outstanding follow up, is professional, knows her job and does it extremely well.
The feeling you get from this office is that they CARE deeply about doing a good job for the clientele. Which AGAIN, makes me wonder...why the two and a half stars? I literally took a chance on this office because of what I read about Dr. Hong, and not even on Yelp, and his superior credentials which is typically my first consideration. Second is location, third is staff and fourth is office.
So, now Dr. Hong. Dr. Hong, in my 30 years of seeing eye care professionals stands alone as the best. Why is this? He weighs the pros and cons of the decisions that he will ultimately make and he brings you into this process of decision making. He takes his time. He explains things. He is careful. Now, how is that different than some doctors? I will explain this too. Many doctors bring you into the decision process, in fact they ASK you what you want to do, but they haven't built any foundation of education by teaching you about the problem that needs to be fixed which would enable you to make that decision. How am I to decide something about which I have no knowledge? I have the result of my visit with Dr. Hong and it has been life changing for me. It wasn't an enormous change in my prescription. That's not the point. The point was he got it exactly right. What is important is that if, God forbid, something horrible ever happen with my eyes, I now know where to go and who I can trust without hesitation.
Thank you Dr. Hong, Marie, Jenna for your professionalism, courtesy, and care. read more