Dr. Stewart is the only doctor in 10 years who has been able to determine what is going on with my shoulder. He resolved the issue without surgery after many other doctors over the years said I had a tear that would require surgery to make the pain go away. He has also looked at one of my knees and diagnosed/treated it quickly. Sometimes there is a wait to get an appointment with him but it is worth it.
7 years ago (10-01-2018)
This is little Andy Stewart, a very knowledgeable practitioner with a stratospheric opinion of himself. I fired him for a few reasons. One: it takes up to an hour to get through his phone system. Not his fault. But it takes persistence and patience and much much time. Two: he knew, his office knew, and my insurance company knew, that my insurance was waning. It will be ending in a few weeks. So about 5 weeks ago I started trying to get authorization for a procedure. I was urged by his able assistant Dawn Micelli (Hi Dawn) to be a "squeaky wheel". And little Andy, it must be noted, had made a great deal of money from said insurance policy. All in 8 minutes office visit-blitzes. He complained about that, too. The assembly line nature of his work. A world class whiner. We never, or I should say he never, got his authorization person to submit my information in those 5 weeks. But our man was not happy that his poor staff was being hounded by a wounded patient. He actually took the time (14 minutes! He clocked it himself!) to castigate me, from his car phone, for being such a nudge. And he complained that Dawn had complained. And the auth lady who couldn't move a muscle for 5 weeks? She complained. And as of last Friday my insurance company had still not heard. They heard plenty from me. Fourteen minutes Andy! My apologies. By the way, you shouldn't speak on your car phone. He referenced a Mercedes. Lord willing he didn't break a nail. Lucky me, I had back up insurance behind me. It took the new insurance (Medicare) five minutes to authorize. Got Medicare in the middle of all this. Long story. (Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield could not get a mulish authorization employee from a provider office to provide in five weeks. Many calls were made. None were returned. None. Thanks for the help Andy. Thanks for the back-up Dawn. You all behaved like real pros. What does the oath say? First, do no harm? How about, first: do something; anything.
No more big payouts from BC/BS . Their Patient Provider folks are digging into this. They didn't like the utter lack of response from the authorizer. Didn't like the story of poor Andy's 14 minutes of hell. Didn't like phoning and not hearing back time and time again. So for those FOURTEEN minutes of hell, I guess we are better off with you being fired and me being free of you. Be speaking more to the Patient Provider Review people about the hell I put you through. Andy? you are fired. By me; and others on your site agree. 3 out of 5 ain't good, to reference an old tune. Lastly: You should have managed your staff better. Even 14 minutes would have been worth it. Get them to move a muscle. Much of this drama could have been avoided. It took the office records staff 5 minutes to get my information over to my new doctor. Somebody over there is doing something. UPDATE: got a call from the office of the CEO. He understood I was unhappy. Got that part right. Said that the service, a conservative response to an injury (injections before knee replacement) should be allowed. Right again. He didn't address the fact that Andy handed me a pamphlet about the injections because they might avoid a knee replacement. And lastly he didn't address the issue as to why his team a) refused to respond to repeated calls; b) why Andy, after banking a small fortune on my BC/BS claims called to harangue me for "14 minutes" from his car phone and complain about the inconvenience. How about a call from your office desk? How about a little professionalism? How about adhering to your oath?
7 years ago (31-01-2018)
Called twice - the first time was a 6 minute wait and the receptionist was a bit snippy as a previous reviewer wrote. I was unable to get an appointment for a reasonable date, so I made alternate arrangements with other medical facilities.
Second time I called, several days later, there was a 9 minute waiting time. I left a message instead of holding and they never called me back (writing this 3 days after the second call).