My son, who's been through two spinal fusion surgeries, had an incision and drainage (I&D) surgery (due to a possible infection in his incision from spinal fusion surgery) on June 29. The surgeon who did the I&D wanted my son to follow up with Dr. Zajac within the next week after that. I called three times to try to set an appointment, and each time, his office staff had no idea what I was talking about even though my son's surgeon's office had already communicated with Zajac's office. Because my son's 24, 48, and 72-hour cultures all came back negative, and because he eventually had a follow-up with his surgeon and things looked pretty good, I didn't sweat the fact that we never heard back from Zajac's office. I'd been told by another doctor's office in San Antonio that Zajac's office was incompetent; the fact that it took his staff a MONTH to call us back - a month after my son's surgery - proved that comment about incompetence to be very accurate. I laughed when they called with the August 9 appointment (since his surgeon had wanted the appointment to take place the week of July 1), but I said, "Okay. We'll book it." I booked the appointment because my son still had another set of labs to be drawn (after he had been on antibiotics for about 20 days), and I thought if his surgeon still wanted him to see Zajac, we'd take him there.
So, it's August 9. My son's lab work looks great, but when we had his checkup with his surgeon today at 9:30 a.m., his surgeon said that to be on the safe side, he still wanted us to keep our appointment with Zajac. So, we hung around San Antonio (we live in Round Rock) for the 1:45 p.m. appointment.
We got there around 1:35. We filled out the paperwork. There were about five people already there ahead of us. It took five minutes to fill out the paperwork. Then we sat and waited. We watched as each of the other five patients went back. A lot of time passed between each patient. After an hour, we still hadn't been taken back to an examination room. Finally, we were taken back to an examination room where we waited for another 45 minutes or more.
At one point, I went to the desk to see what the holdup was. At this time, I overheard a caregiver, who had brought in an elderly patient, ask one of the office staff members, "Is there a better time to bring him so he doesn't have to wait so long to be seen?"
The office staff member very politely replied, "Well, there are times when there really are a lot of appointments that are scheduled. Around 11 in the mornings might be better."
There it is! ",,,there are time when there really are a lot of appointments that are scheduled." I don't think they just double or triple schedule, I think at a minimum, they quadruple schedule appointment times. That is completely unacceptable when there's only one doctor seeing patients.
This same office worker helped me when I asked, "How much longer do you think it's going to be?"
I will say that she was very kind and apologetic, but she alone can't raise the "star rating" on this review from a one to even a two because everything else was so poorly executed.
She came into the room to do some intake because Zajac was with another patient. She said that my son would be the next patient to be seen. I'd heard Zajac in the hallway throughout our hour-and-45-minute+ wait time. He sounded pleasant with patients.
When he finally came into the room, I asked him if it was normal for this kind of wait time and told him that my son's appointment was scheduled at 1:45. It was currently past 3:30. His reply was, "You could look elsewhere if you like."
I simply replied, "We will." But that will be for our next appointment. I wasn't going to let my son sit there waiting for a total wait time of two hours and not be seen by the doctor.
Not only was he rude and arrogant, but he was also incompetent. He said that he wanted to put my son on an antibiotic for three-to-six months because sometimes there is something in there that doesn't show up on the 24, 48, or 72-hour culture that could show up two weeks later. We had already told him that my son's surgery was SIX weeks ago. He went on to say how it was still important that my son be on this antibiotic as a precaution. When my son, who is 18, pointed out - for a second time - that the surgery had taken place six weeks ago, that he had been on an antibiotic up until July 20 (and, I should add, it was Zajac's - presumably Zajac - that my son's surgeon consulted with in order to determine those antibiotics that he was on until July 20), and furthermore pointed out that he hadn't had a fever and was feeling great, suddenly Zajac changed his mind and said an antibiotic wasn't necessary. He let an 18-year-old patient change his mind?!?!
I don't mind waiting hours for a GREAT doctor; but when an office quadruples (at a minimum) appointments and then the doctor is rude, I'll never go back again. Stay away from this office. read more