Claiming a referral can't be faxed to another doctor's office because regulation requires new patients to undergo a complete physical examination before issuance - only to issue that referral without such examination after keeping the new patient, who arrived 30 minutes early like asked to by staff, waiting over an hour after the patient's scheduled time on the day of the appointment, and then scheduling yet another appointment for the same physical exam in order to charge the insurance company twice - is unethical to say the least and borders on legality. Insurance companies give doctors a lot of discretion on charging for services, and that's one reason heath insurance is expensive and unaffordable for so many people. Many doctors take advantage by bilking the system. This office charged the insurer $150 for a piece of paper that could have been faxed. What was done in the office could have been done over the phone in 5 minutes.
If a doctor seems to care more about perception and how the office looks rather than how it operates, one hypothesizes that financial success is more important to that doctor than patient care. Here you have an osteopathic physician, who comes from a family of doctors, with no clue what it means to go into business as a private doctor. It takes very little to satisfy people who are used to bad service in medicine and think that they will get the same quality of service anywhere they go. Like beggars not wanting to be choosey, they are happy with whatever they get. Most people that are dissatisfied with the quality of care they receive from any business don't complain; they simply walk away and never return again. But it's important to speak out to separate reality from those who are easily appeased and from the many fake reviews generated on Yelp by businesses with multiple employees with personal accounts.
Forget about what the office looks like, and how polite the doctor comes off. You're not there for a job. What matters is how competent and proficient the doctor and staff are. I've seen family physicians see 70 patients a day - many of them walk-ins (non-scheduled appointments), without medical assistants, and with only one receptionist - provide better care than this office. The staff at this place is big enough for a small clinic yet you have to wait long past your scheduled time to be seen, and deal with the lack of professionalism expected from a doctor's office. The staff is not properly trained; HIPAA and OSHA does NOT encompass proper training. Any experienced clinician will tell you that HIPPA is more about protecting doctors from lawyers than protecting patients. Proper training comes from the top; i.e., the doctor. The staff here wears scrubs with no identification; they call you into a room, and ask you questions about your sex life, and then you find out they are not RNs nor PAs. This increases medical errors and the chance of having personal details disclosed to other non-medical employees. Allowing medical records to be accessed by non-medical staff is a sure way for an employee to commit fraud, identity theft, or sell a patient's medical information to medical companies. No one should have access to patients' medical records but their doctor. And why are they in scrubs? There should be a law preventing anyone from wearing scrubs that isn't a doctor or nurse; the same way it's illegal to wear a police uniform by anyone who is not a cop.
The law requires doctors to go "paperless" (digitize medical records). It does NOT require doctors to put patients' medical records online! Disabling access to your medical information through some unsecured Web site doesn't keep your medical record offline. This doctor insists on keeping medical records on an online database, where it can be accessed by staff and hackers, even if patients opt out to access it themselves through the Web site. If Google, Apple, Microsoft, Wall Street Banks, and the U.S. government get secret information stolen from them by hackers, nothing online is safe. The most secure way to keep private information safe is to not put it online. The first rule of practicing medicine is to do no harm, so why risk patients' privacy?
Many doctors claim to take patient privacy very seriously but fail to truly comprehend what it means. This is why there are so many medical privacy and malpractice attorneys in the U.S. Strange enough, this doctor has a hospital administration MBA - go figure!
If you have a serious health problem or suffer from something chronic like diabetes or asthma or are looking for an OBGYN or pediatrician for your baby, seek a seasoned medical profession. And one that protects your personal information and does not put your medical record online. read more
