Summary:
I saw Dr. Jules Lipoff for 8 months, once a month in 2025 for cystic acne. If you are comfortable doing 95% of the work as a patient and only relying on the doctor for prescribing you what you think you need, and if you are comfortable with billing policies where the office keeps your card on file and you have to actively monitor, dispute, and correct false auto charges, then this is the doctor for you.
More details:
The doctor offered the standard treatments for acne: Antibiotics and when that didn't work accutane. Dr. Lipoff provided the bare minimum information about accutane via a printout. I learned much more from the internet (the accutane subreddit, specifically). He did not proactively share any kind of expertise ("I've seen patients experience X side effects" or "I've seen some patients take X months to experience the treatment taking effect") Repeatedly, he would simply say, "it varies." With each monthly visit, the doctor would not provide any sort of assessment on progress or lack thereof with the treatment. Instead, he would ask: "how are you feeling" and then offer to up the accutane dosage or switch to another medication in the accutane family if that was something I wanted. I did not experience any sort of continuity across visits...it felt like the doctor was meeting me for the first time every time, and he would have 5 canned questions and responses ready to go. The visits were 5-7 mins in length at most.
I visited the doctor in both philly locations and the supporting staff (medical assistants, front desk staff), were constantly changing. The staff in general was average to below average in terms of feeling like they actually cared about the patient and the patient's needs. Additionally, because the Dermatologist Specialists is a chain of dermatology offices across states, you need to talk through a parade of individuals to resolve any issues/questions you might have.
Regularly, I had to talk to:
an automated robot on the phone to get through to a human who worked in the "general office" who could then route me to a human in the actual office I visited or a human on the billing team (the billing team is a separate entity and does not collaborate effectively with the actual office teams).
Regarding fulfilling the accutane prescription: It involves actions taken on the part of the patient, actions taken on the part of the healthcare provider, and actions taken on the part of the pharmacy. The Dermatology Specialists does nothing to make this process smooth, and every month I would have to show up at the pharmacy only for them to tell me that the healthcare provider did not take the required actions, even after I received confirmation from support staff from the dermatology specialists that I was able to pick up the prescription at the pharmacy. Rectifying the problem each month involved speaking to at least 2-3 individuals plus the automated robot.
Lastly, I'll share that The Dermatology Specialist policy is to have a credit card on file. For the first 4 months, I got charged my $50 copay and insurance covered the rest. Starting in month 5, I was erroneously auto-charged $250, and the issue persisted in months 6 and 7, despite multiple conversations with both the main office and the billing team to get the issue resolved. I was able to get my credit card removed, however when I went to my next scheduled appointment, the front desk staff said without a card on file, they would require $100 in addition to the $50 copay charge. The staff was not interested in explaining why there was this discrepancy between paying by card and paying by cash. At which point, I cancelled the appointment, and called it quits with this dermatologist.
It was an overall an exhausting, unpleasant, and disappointing healthcare journey. read more
