After losing my long term eye doctor to an extended illness that is keeping him out of the office, I had to find another doctor. I made an appointment with Metropolitan & informed them of my exact situation on the phone at that time (I had been out of work for close to 6 months on short term disability, my vision is so bad, I can not drive or read & have several other serious symptoms). I was told to bring my medical files from the other drs office which I brought to my first visit.
I was kept waiting for close to two hours before being seen by Dr. Mullin who barely listened to anything I told him about my symptoms. The exam took approx 8 minutes. I brought all the medication that I had been on during the previous 6 months including a now EXPIRED half empty bottle of steroid eyedrops which he told me to start using again. When I said they were expired & that they had done nothing for me except give me side effects & make me sick when I took them the first time, Dr. Mullin said 'TRY THEM AGAIN' & that was the end of the appointment.
During checkout, I gave my disability paperwork to the person setting up my next appointment & asked if it could be done by the time Sedgwick (my short term disability insurance) needed it back. I was told it would be no problem.
I figured I would give them another chance & set up a follow up visit which I did for the 21st of Feb.
The following week, I called & spoke to Kathleen, the office manager & found out that Dr. Mullin did not want to fill out the paperwork because 'he had no information on my previous condition & had not been the one treating me'. I told her that was why I had brought in my old records & that the doctor I had been seeing was out of the office & I had no return date for him so I was going to have to continue my treatment with Dr. Mullin & that I had explained all this when setting up my original appointment.
After a lot of grief including a statement that basically accused me of lying about my other doctor being gone with no referral protocol set up, Kathleen finally passed a message onto Dr. Mullin who returned my call the same day. He said he did not see one of the symptoms that had been one of my complaints & when I asked about the others, he pretty much dismissed them saying that the one complaint had really been all he was looking for (WHY!?!??!!??!)
I called back the next business day (Monday) & found out they returned the paperwork & had reported that I was fit to return to work to Sedgwick. There was absolutely nothing I could do about that except request a letter of release to return to work which, according to Kathleen, Dr. Mullin refused to give me since 'he did not write me out, he did not want to write me back in'.
?!?!?!
After a week of not knowing whether I would receive the letter & a whole lot of incredibly unprofessional & rude behaviour from Kathleen including a wholly unnecessary observation that she had been there when I called to make the original appointment & that I should have come in that day & not waited a week to be seen - obviously not knowing that I had to wait for my pay date to afford the cash payment for the office visit since I am uninsured - I was told that they would give me the letter of release to return to work.
I have to say that Kathleen takes the worst employee of the year award for rudeness, insensitivity, terrible customer service & all around making a bad situation far more difficult than it ever had to be.
She had no reason to behave the way she did & did not even consider the stress they put me through. It would seem simple: if the doctor told the insurance company I could return to work, why not give me a letter stating the same thing? All of this was exacerbated by Kathleen's HORRIBLE ATTITUDE & the worst customer service skills I have ever encountered.
I will NEVER return to that office & would definitely not recommend them to ANYONE. I would not have given them even one star but could not figure out how to post it without clicking on one. ;( read more