Since this place changed ownership it has gone extremely downhill. The **new** staff is incompetent…read moreand rude. I feel sympathy for how clearly miserable they are, though they make it difficult.
I'm profoundly disappointed to have to change eye doctors after going to the same place my entire life. They messed up my scheduling twice and then, when I got there, they adamantly told me I did not have insurance after going there with the same insurance for 15 years. They were only able to actually "find it" after I gave up dealing with their idiotic berating and left.
The new optometrists and Beth and Irene from the previous staff are great, but the newer hires (who now make up most of the office) are awful. I have been going to this eye doctor since I was a child (seeing Dr. Lipchak) and had always enjoyed it, finding the staff reliable and friendly; however, since they rebranded as Clarkson Eyecare and changed their staff, my experiences have been extremely negative.
After getting called into work, I tried to reschedule my annual appointment (which was on a Wednesday) to the following Wednesday, contacting the office a week out. After telling me on the phone I was scheduled for Wednesday, I somehow ended up in their system as scheduled for Monday; once I called back and was talked to as if I had messed something up, they told me they could take me at 10:10 on the Wednesday I was requesting. A little while later, I got a confirmation text for 10:10 on that Thursday. After once again being talked to as I if I was the idiot in this situation, I finally ended up at the office on the day that worked with my schedule.
Once I got to the office, I was told that I either didn't have or they couldn't find my insurance -- it wasn't exactly clear. As aforementioned, I have been a patient at this office for well over a decade and have not changed insurance. I am under 24 and still on my mother's policy, but I, of course, have my own insurance information -- this seemed to be confusing and irritating to the woman at the counter. The lady was annoyed as she retyped my insurance information, telling me this could take a while, as if I were taking her up time as a new patient who she had to go out of her way to make a profile for. (They graciously let me know that it was my own fault I didn't know they had lost my insurance in their state-of-the-art computer system; a woman had called me at 4:50 the night prior to tell me so!)
Trying to figure out my insurance, the lady who was 'helping' me eventually called over another receptionist, who decided to be meaner than the initial person I was talking to. I first dealt with the older (but new) receptionist and then a younger one. Talking about me as if I were not there, they debated "just putting the $20 copay through and, if she isn't covered, she can just figure that out on her own later." The real kicker is that I had insurance the whole time, but they didn't decide to try to figure that out until I walked out; while I was there, they just very curtly told me that "BUT YOU DONT HAVE THE INSURANCE. THATS WHAT WE ARE TELLING YOU." Apparently it was the insurance company (EyeMed) that had messed up; however, I don't believe that, because they would not have suddenly decided to be much nicer and patronizing to me if it were not their own fault.
Overall, since the business has changed, I have personally found that the new staff is extremely incompetent and rude. I don't like leaving bad reviews, especially for a place I once thoroughly appreciated, but I do not want anyone debating dealing with these people to make the wrong decision or to spend $500 on glasses.
(Side note based on another experience here: they have to give your prescription, including your PD. That is your personal health information that you are entitled to under the law; but if you ask for it, they will try to not give it to you, assumedly because you can take your prescription to Zenni or another online glasses distributor and purchase frames using insurance at about a 50th of the price at Clarkson.)
The old staff, some of which is still there, has always been phenomenal. Even the new doctors are sweet and good at what they do. It's a shame the others ruined the place.
