1 /5 Mindy A.: SUMMARY: Our actual doctor is great. The management of the office is TERRIBLE. If you need referrals, plan to call daily to make sure things are moving along and have been submitted properly. Be prepared to wait a long time in the lobby for every visit. Be prepared to collect all of your childs medical history from previous offices and bring it to them. They wont worry about requesting records for you. If you have other options, choose one of those.
DETAILS: Weve been patients for 2.5 years now and we have 3 kids, so weve been to this office quite a few times. Dr. Freeman is FABULOUS. If I didnt REALLY like her, and we werent moving soon, I would DEFINITELY switch to a different practice.
Scheduling visits- Theyre booked pretty far out, and weve had 6 appointments cancelled on us (3 of the appointments I had scheduled 4 months ahead of time, and 3 appointments had been scheduled 3 weeks prior). So dont count on getting your scheduled appointment time.
Wait time at the visit - Every time weve been to the office for a scheduled appointment (weve been on time), we wait in the lobby between 20-50 minutes. Doesnt matter if we have an early morning appointment or an afternoon appointment. Be prepared to wait a while in the lobby or outside. Once you get into the patient room, expect to wait between 10-30 minutes. Bring something for your kid to play with.
Referral follow through- non-existent. Weve had a number of referrals now that have taken FOREVER. In this most recent experience, we had an appointment on August 14. I called the referral coordinator the following week, and left a message (their recording says theyll get back to you within a business day). No response. I called again a week later and left a message. No response. Called a third time and finally spoke to someone who told me the referral was never submitted. So here we are, 28 days AFTER the appointment and were at the starting line. Very frustrating, especially when you need a referral to a specialist who already has a long line of patients.
Phone calls - Ive waited on the phone for over 30 minutes before just to talk to someone at the front desk.
New Patient Paperwork: When we moved here, we were active duty military, but we switched to the reserves shortly. This office told me they had to have my kids ENTIRE medical history to submit before we could schedule a new patient well check. Every other office weve ever been to has requested records for us after the new patient visit. This means I had to go to the military hospital, submit a records request (including getting our previous CA doctors office to send everything over), wait for it to be filled, go to the hospital to pick up a ream of papers and drive across town to hand the office the papers in order to SCHEDULE a well check for my kids (which was needed before we could start school). Ive never run into this kind of outrageous request prior to getting a new patient appointment. I was floored. Should have been my first clue to find a different pediatricians office.
