If you get a referral here from a PCP, ER, Urgent Care, or anywhere else, ask for another place…read more
Let's start with the staff. I just got a call right now to inform me that I missed an appointment. In response, I apologize sincerely and tried to explain that I thought I received a request to confirm or not confirm, I chose not to confirm. The staff person then interrupted and started to yell at me that the call was just as a courtesy and that I actively needed to go out of my way to call and cancel the appointment. I then said, that's fine, but she did not need to yell as I was in the middle of apologizing. She then lowered her voice (but did not apologize for her behavior). I explained calmly (to keep her calm) that if they needed to charge me for what they believed to be a missed appointment then it is what it is. I explained that I didn't really get any help in the two visits I went so I did not want to go back and hung up.
That leads me to the medical staff who don't really do anything. I was referred to this place to get a stye removed from my eye. I show up and I'm told that the doctor is on vacation and he won't be back for another two weeks. I get some antibiotics but I realize while I'm there that they should have never told me to come in as they did not have an ophthalmologist on staff that day. The only medical professionals on staff were optometrists and nurses. Interestingly, the doctor was not forthcoming about the fact that he was an optometrist.
When I arrived two weeks later, Dr. Jacobs said he did not think treatment was necessary and told me I needed to use a hot compress and sold a beaded eye mask that you can microwave. I have no problem paying for something that may help but the thought was, if this was what I needed, why didn't I get this two weeks ago instead of getting every treatment necessary so I could wear contacts again. I had also been using a warm compress regularly for several weeks. However, Dr. Jacobs insisted the eye mask was better and he was right but why did they wait to get me the mask? The last several weeks, I had been miserable because I am farsighted in one eye and nearsighted in the other so glasses cause vertigo-like symptoms, dizziness, and headaches. Anyway, when he said his opinion was to not operate, I voiced my belief that I'd rather just have the stye removed. He then said "I'll pretend I didn't hear that." Incredibly rude but I was on a mission to remove this stye that had been bothering me for over 5 weeks. After some discussion, he finally conceded that it was my call and said he wasn't sure but there may be nothing in my eye, the stye could just be skin left over from where there was fluid inside. I asked him to touch the eyelid so he could confirm that this is the right call (since he claimed he had 40 years of experience). He didn't. I could tell he didn't want to operate and I realized despite how upset I was that I wasn't going to force someone who disagreed with me to put a knife against my eye (even though he conceded it would be a very small cut that only took a few days to heal). It just wasn't worth the risk.
Overall a negative experience dealing with these folks, which is sad because until now my absolute best experiences with physicians were with ophthalmologists. If you're a potential patient that's made it this far, go somewhere else, they're not worth it. If you work there, you deserve any loss of business caused by this review. If you're the receptionist that started yelling at me, please don't change a thing, less people will come and eventually you'll be out of a job. :)