I am 50f and have been under another doctor's care for 7 years with several visits a year to do…read moreblood panels, get medicine when sick, adjust meds, etc. However she is closing down her practice so I am looking for a primary care doctor. With my appointment categorized as "Establishing care", I arrived for my Tuesday 10:30am appointment promptly at 10:15, as advised. The waiting room was empty, as was the receptionist desk. I waited for several minutes at the window, and the receptionist eventually emerged from the restroom. I cheerfully said good morning, and she half smiled and went around to sit behind her desk.
She pulled up my account, face grim now, and gave a big sigh and said, "OOOF, there's a LOT missing here." I HAD put in my insurance information in when I booked the appointment online, however, so after about 5 minutes of questions and long silences I asked, "Will you need my insurance card?" In a very condescending voice, she said, "Yeeeeeeees, I'm GETTING to that, AND I'll need your ID." Well ok then. After a few more questions she told me to take a seat in the waiting room.
After perhaps 2 or 3 minutes, a nurse came out into the empty-but-for-me waiting room and said my name. I followed her a few steps past the door to the scale and flatly told me to take my shoes off and step on. I joked, "Should I put down my 40lb purse as well?" No reply. She then told me to put my heels against the metal strip by the wall and noted my height. "Go to the last room on the left and sit in the first chair." No Please, no eye contact. We're not in a busy downtown ER, we're in friendly Cedarburg and your waiting room is empty this Tuesday morning. I went and sat in the chair as instructed, and a few moments later she came in. She logged into the computer. "When was your last physical?" Thinking a moment about the blood panels I'd had done in the last few months, I asked, "What constitutes a physical?" and she barked, "WELL THAT'S A NO." I didn't reply; I really didn't know what to say to that. She shook her head at the screen and said, "NO mammogram, NO pap, NO --" and I interrupted her. "I had a mammogram 18 months ago, and a pap last year. I'm not in the Ascension system, I've been under another doctor's care."
I cannot overstate how negative her assumptions and affect were.
She took my blood pressure and pulse ox, and I asked her if she'd like the list of medications I'm on. (I had it printed out because I *hate* writing it on forms.) She replied, "No, one of the interns will take that." I asked, "Interns?" She replied, "Yeah, doctor has interns. Sometimes 3, 4, 6 of them. He always has interns." It struck me as weird, this putzy unbusy little run-down office having a herd of interns. Why?
She finished up on the computer and said, "Doctor will be in shortly." and left.
I sat in the room, digesting all of what had just happened. The receptionist was put-out and condescending. The nurse had been aggressively rude and presumptive. I could hear conversational chatter coming from another area adjacent to the room I was in. I decided to check my phone for messages, since I was here in the middle of my workday.
I waited for 30 minutes in that room.
During that time, I was just a few steps away from the waiting room and could hear that not a single person had come through the doors. I could still hear the chatter/banter through the walls. I realized that I am 50 years old and WAY TOO OLD to put up with this crap. We pay WAY too much for medical care to be treated like this. I walked the few steps to the receptionist, who was sitting about 10 feet away from the nurse, and they both looked up, surprised. I said, "I've been waiting 30 minutes. I have WAY too many warning bells going off about this place to think this is going to end well. I am leaving now, and I will not be back."
I never met the doctor.
I'm leaving this review because of my mom. If my mom, who is loathe to go to doctors because she feels like they'll criticize her, came to this terrible office and was talked down to by these condescending and RUDE front desk and nursing staff, she would be traumatized. I'm also going to be reaching out to Ascension to report this experience.
Stay far away from this place.
