Very disappointed with the care at this ophthalmology office. I was prescribed medication, and over two months passed without the office responding to the pharmacy, despite multiple attempts. My next appointment was scheduled weeks out with no solution offered in the meantime. I called repeatedly and no one ever answers. Even when I went in person, the same issue continued. Communication with patients is extremely poor. The most concerning part was when I called due to an eye emergency. I was sent to a nurse's voicemail and told I would receive an immediate call back, which never happened. After five hours with no response, I had to contact another doctor who was able to help me right away. This level of neglect is irresponsible, especially when it involves patients' vision. I do not recommend this office. read more

Called today on behalf of my grandmother to get help with her prescription. Got someone on the phone, was immediately cut off and sent to someone's voicemail. If that's the service you get over the phone, I'm nervous for the service in person. read more

Dr Hunter stokes is a great doctor, it's his staff eBen though you have insurance , and of course you get charged more, well after getting the first eye done he had already set up and appointment for the surgery on the other eye arrangements had all ready been made to be off work I work at a hospital so I kinda know how things work, well 2 weeks before the next surgery they needed 1000 dollars payed before the next , so they cancel my surgery for the other eye the day before the appointment, so I had to reschedule but I had too pay that first, Im sure insurance payed way more than should have, The lady in charge of getting the money was very rude you would think it was coming out of her pocket she is very nasty and hangs up when she was told I didn't have the money at that time, my eye drops every thing had been picked up, so I had to wait until after Christmas to get the money up so I could pay in full , So after the second one was done of course insurance paid but of course they want another 1000 insurance didn't cover I try to pay monthly when I have extra to send not trying to bet them out any money, I'm sure they must need it more too pay their nasty collection lady , maybe one day she will know how it feels to need work done and you can't pay at that time, but I know they double the price for people with insurance, well Im still sending money to them when I have it , she sends a nasty letter with the amount owed underline in red ink and saying had to be paid in full, and under line in red pen no appointments will be made until paid in full and the letter end with sincerely but no signature , but I know who she is and I pray one she or one of her family members need surgery but can't have it because they charge way more after insurance, Doctor Hunter stokes really needs too fire her and a few of the other staff members It is true they have very nasty attitudes, I hope it doesn't cost anything out her pocket should someone not be able to pay full amount read more

I had been going to Stokes for years. However, after my last phone call, I will NEVER go back! I called about verifying my contact lenses prescription to re-order my contacts and I haven't been to the eye doctor in a while. The receptionist talked down to me and was very rude. She said they had no record of me ever being a patient and they could not do anything to help me with my contact prescription. She did not offer to have me come in for an appointment or say sorry we don't have your records. She could have cared less! I called another eye doctor office, was greeted warmly, was able to be scheduled for the following afternoon, and will be going there from now on. read more

My grandparents had an appointment here today. For starters no one called to verify the time of the appointment so we showed up at 10am thinking the appointments was at this time. Let me remind you the appointment was made over a month ago at their last visit. We're at the front desk and Sarah tells us that the appointment isn't until 2:15p and 2:30p, ok that wasn't a problem. The problem this morning was they seemed to not have any information on file (apparently). They asked for all the insurance information which should already been in the system since this was a referral that came from another eye doctor. (Anyways fast forward to this afternoon.) We came back for the afternoon appointments ON TIME!!!! Which was at 2:15p, I am sitting here NOW pissed!!! and it is now 4:15p 2hrs later. It took the doctor close to 30 mins to come in the room after it only took the nurse 10 mins to do what she had to do. After the doctor came in asked 2 or 3 questions, looked at her eyes and then dilated her eyes. Why couldn't they have just dilated her eyes while we were waiting for 30 mins for him just to come in the room who knows! Again we had to wait a little while for her eye to dilate. Came back in the room and is still waiting for Dr.Ross to come back in the room. I've read quite a few of these reviews and the fact of the matter is this office has not yet taken in any consideration of the wait times and let's not forget the not so nice staff!!! I'm not sure who handles these reviews or if there is a corporate office but I will find out! This is unacceptable this is a business and it's being run very very very poorly and I could keep going but again very poor service! They don't deserve one star because they deserve a thumbs down all the way!!! They only get that because I can't post without giving something. Smh unbelievable I'll close this with saying it is now 4:30p and the doctor just came in 5 mins ago! read more

For a place that is supposed to provide "care" to people, this practice is a total fail. I contacted this office after a recommendation from the doctor who performed my yearly eye exam. After a somewhat lengthy process, which included providing them with every detail of my medical and insurance information, I was finally allowed to make an appointment. From the moment I walked into the office, the experience was chaotic and unpleasant. The people at the front desk were either rude, poorly trained or indifferent. These are not qualities you want to find in people who are going to have access to your medical care. From the minute I checked in, they actually tried to sell me additional services. This is before I was anywhere near seeing a doctor. I had explained my insurance (which is excellent) to them when I made the appointment. Upon arrival, it seemed as if these conversations had never taken place. All they seemed to be able to do is quote how they "do things here." It was completely frustrating. I used my phone to dial up United Healthcare (my provider) to resolve the matter and the office staff here actually refused to speak to them saying "we do not have time to talk to insurance companies." This was in direct opposition to what my insurance company asked them to do. I realize that in this location, we are not dealing with the quality of provider services that you find at Duke or Kaiser or even Carolinas Medical Center. However, I think is is reasonable to expect for the first point-of contact in a medical office to be competent and courteous. I found neither here. The end result at this practice was that I did not see a doctor. The difficulty of the front office staff made it impossible. I will add that I was able to walk across the street to McLeod Medical and get a same-day appointment there with no issues whatsoever. That is what I would recommend to anyone as an option to dealing with this nightmare of a front-office staff. read more

If you make an appt here, you SHOULD be able to show up an hour and a half late and still be fine. I went here to have a procedure done on my right eye. No complaints there. But on my two follow ups I was kept waiting an unacceptable amount of time. The procedure had already been paid for, so I guess there was no more money to be made on this patient. Today I went to have the final check on the healing from my procedure. They, not I, made an appt time for 9:55 am. I arrived at 9:40...and left the waiting room at 11:08 having never been seen by the doctor. They dont have to worry about seeing me again. My time is valuable too! read more

Long read; early tldr is that if you have to take a child, it'll be a Bad Time. I had a visit here today for my toddler niece, a 3 year old with occasional eye crossing who stands directly in front of TVs, after waiting 6 months for this appointment. (Not the reason for one star, I've been told it's a very highly specialized place and I suppose a long wait makes sense.) The place is lovely, very clean and well maintained, nurses are very polite, doctors clearly knowledgeable. If it was my appointment (as a 21 year old) it would've been a stellar visit. However, going for a 3 year old showed me that this place is meant for adults and not children. They had plenty of them for visits, nearly every person in the waiting room and ones who passed our door was below 12 or accompanying a child, so it didn't make much sense to me how bad the nurses were with children. Of course, they were trying and being nice to them, but they clearly had no idea how to make the experience pleasant or even tolerable to kids. While taking my niece to the bathroom I witnessed one child (about 8-10) begin instructed to look into a machine (likely to see numbers or letters, like the ones at the DMV) who had two similarly aged siblings and a passive, calm mother with them. The child was fearful of the device and a few inches too short to look into it properly. One nurse was guiding the process and within a minute or so two joined her, all of them speaking over each other with urgent voices, telling her that "the sooner you do it, the sooner it's over!" (which I wouldn't recommend saying to anyone, let alone a scared kid, that just sounds like it'll be painful) and asking her repeatedly if she was standing on her tiptoes (she was, in the attempt to obey them despite her unease) without a single one checking to see or listening to her response. Finally one pulled up a chair for her, telling her to sit, while another repeatedly told her to put her chin here and rest her forehead and the other parrotting her. The kid was afraid, overwhelmed, confused, and her siblings darted around nervously, ready to kick up a fuss. No one explained the device or process to her (like "If you look inside, you'll see these lines of numbers and letters, and I'd like to read them back to me. If you can't see something, that lets me know how good you can see so we can make you glasses so you can see better." would've been easy, simple, and perfect) and too many of them assigned themselves to the task and only made it worse. For the visit I had a 20 month old and my 3 year old, and the rooms were very drab and boring at best and scary at worse, with a chair and the... butterfly lense device? I've never known the name for it, but it certainly looked less than friendly and remarkably intimidating to little ones who hadn't seen it before. When the little ones peeked out of the room after 30 minutes, antsy and irritable and looking for stimulation, the nurses briskly informed me that we had to stay in the room and shut the door in their faces. I can understand patient privacy, but putting two small children in a room like that is asking for discomfort (yes, I had a toy a piece for them and a smart phone to share, but anyone who knows babies knows they have short attention spans and lots of curiosity) and there's better ways to handle that then strictly informing people of policy and briskly shutting the door every time you see it crack open (had to stop her from shutting it on us on a bathroom visit after nearly an hour in the room). The doctor was great, much better than I expected after some time with the nurses, even brought out toys for the 3 year old to follow back and forth as he watched her eyes wobble and cross and gave us time to soothe her when she was scared. Only complaint was that, when the toys came out, he snapped the door closed when the 20 month old went to see what he had and caused her to pitch a fit as he continued to show the other child the toys (could've let her hold a toy to keep her placated or incorporated her in the process like have her wave the toy for the 3 year old, but I digress), but that's my only complaint against him. Never once did he touch the scary device and instead turned the blank screen on to a cartoon (speaking of, whyyyy could the nurse not have done that if she wanted them to stop peeking out of the room????) and had her watch the cartoon while he would put lenses in front of her eyes and watch her. -Cut out a lot because of word count- Overall, the appointment was a good hour over what we expected despite arriving 30 minutes early and being seen early, the place had nothing for kids at all, the nurses weren't at all practiced with children and had no real excuse given the number of kids there, the toy-caused meltdown made the experience doubly unpleasant, our nurse was very unsympathetic to bored little ones... the visit by itself? Sucked HARD. read more

I had an appointment this morning at 8:25....my son's school called saying he had an injured finger. I go to check on him and quickly head to the office. I get there at 8:40 and was told I would have to reschedule. So if you make an appt I would get there early for fear of being turned around! For 32 years now my husband and I schedule appointments for clients on a daily basis...rarely are they on time but we work them in. Very frustrated this morning. read more

My 4 children and myself have been going to Stokes eye clinic for apx 10 years. Not sure what is going on there but we wait for over an hour to see a doctor who rushes and is not friendly. Being a single mom and working full time, my time is just as valuable as theirs. They need to respect their patients bc they just lost 5. read more

I felt that I had a terrible experience at Stokes and that they were not professional. When I voiced my concerns, they said we will treat you for 30 days for emergencies and then goodbye. Wow.... :( read more

I had a wonderful experience. Everyone was so nice and helpful, I would recommend Stokes Regioal Eye Center to everyone! Pee Dee Optical also went above and beyond my expectations! Thank you for caring. Emma, I'll stop by and show you my glasses when I pick them up. read more

The doctors here are great and well trained, but the administrative staff at the front desk are poor employees. They are the reason it is not worth going to Stokes despite the awesome doctors there. Recently, my brother and I came in for an eye exam. My appointment was at 8:15 and his was at 8:25. We arrived there at 8:17 and signed in. After a couple of minutes, one of the front desk ladies called us up. First, she had a problem with our aunt taking us (our mom was with our grandpa for his surgery) so I had to call our mom and make her stop by Stokes just to give the okay. Second, apparently they don't accept our insurance anymore. We were already there so we decided to go ahead with the appointment. Third, the woman almost made me leave because her poor service lasted more than 15 minutes which was the window to take the appointment. She took one look at my mom's extremely stressed out and upset face and then changed her mind, letting me stay. We still had to wait even longer afterwards anyways so why did the 15 minute window even matter in the first place? Fourth, at the desk, we were told that the cost was $100 for the each of us so $200 total. My mom paid it upfront and left to go be with our grandpa. When we checked out, she gave us our vision prescriptions and school excuses then we left. Approx. 10 days later, we received bills in the mail for the both of us, each charging $64. I called Stokes. The woman on the phone said that they were supposed to charge us the rest at checkout which they did not do. They also did not mention that there would be extra charges. The woman on the phone claimed that it was because they do not know what type of service the doctor would give. But seriously, even if that was the case, is it that hard to mention the possible extra charges? She told me I still had to pay for it and that they were sorry. The entire conversation on the phone was filled from extreme attitude from the Stokes employee. So now I'm stuck with $124 worth of bills. Don't go to Stokes. Their administrative staff is incompetent and rude. UPDATE: This is five minutes after I typed all that up (ten minutes after the call to the billing department). I called them at 10:20 am to cancel next year's appointments. Their office opens at 8:30 am and it is a plain Tuesday. Nobody picked up and I was forwarded to voicemail.....I called again at 10:33 am, still no answer.....10:40 am, no answer. I will continue to try to reach them. read more