I have to disagree with the top reviewer (who seems to stay at the top no matter what? Interesting…read more Must be some Yelp thing I don't know about. I actually suspect that her staff may be adding all these 5 star reviews to keep the rating balance alive - but I digress...) and concur with the majority of the rest. I saw Dr. Stroud in this office. I'm reviewing here because neither the practice - LICH Family Medicine - or the doctor I saw have an entry yet on YELP.
The doctors at this practice are truly, truly good, solid doctors. Dr. Stroud could occasionally be hurried and scatter brained, but most of the time she listened and responded well to most of my concerns. The problem is that in a doctor's office, quite a bit of your time is spent dealing with the office staff. And at this practice, the primary issue is absolutely their abominable, insufferable, HORRIBLE staff. They are unfailingly inappropriately loud, rude, dismissive, unhelpful, and generally the textbook definition of poor customer service and patient care.
The last straw with this office (and there were many before this one) was this past Monday when I found myself knee deep in throes of the flu, pregnant, with chronic respiratory disease. I called the office first thing that morning to see if I could get an appointment to see Dr, Stroud. I got the voicemail (as usual, no one EVER picks up the phone at this practice) and was reminded that there were walk in hours that day. I know what walk in hours mean at LICH Family Med - it means HOURS and HOURS of interminable waiting - so I decided to stay on the phone and see if I could reach a person just to make sure that it wasn't at all possible to get an appointment. After several attempts, including redialing the number over and over again and getting no one, I decided to just show up.
When I did, the receptionist, after making me wait for her to finish her personal conversaiton with another member of the staff, unceremoniously informed me that one of the doctors was on vacation, the other was sick, and that I could return on Wednesday - two days later - if I wanted to be seen.
First of all, if they had picked up the phone EVER I could have avoided dragging myself, flu riddled, pregnant and on the verge of an asthma attack to the office in the first place. Second of all, since there are no doctors in and therefore no patients to see, it BAFFLES me why the fact that walk in hours were effectively canceled was not added to the voicemail - especially since they never answer the phone. Did I mention NEVER? Yeah - NEVER.
It was a blessing in disguise though, because after meaning to for months now, I finally got off my duff and found a new internist. I made an appointment at a wonderful practice in the city with a person, in 10 minutes flat. My doctor saw me 15 minutes after I walked into the office. He determined that I needed to see a specialist, so the staff made an appointment for me with a pulmonologist while I received breathing treatments in the office. (!!!) I was treated like a sick patient and a paying customer and I didn't have to wait for anyone to finish discussing thier weekend to attend to me the entire time I was there. I bet the billing will even be done correctly - the impossibility of which was a foregone conclusion at LICHFM.
I don't know why or how LICH Family Medicine continues to operate the way they do and keep patients, but I'm done with them for good. They can fail to call in refills, fail to read charts, smack gum while they loudly discuss people's charts, and otherwise display with precision what it means to give bottom of the barrel service with someone else from now on. I'll take my business elsewhere.