The doctor is excellent (5 stars) but the office sucks (1 star) and the billing department is horrendous (1 star)!
I saw Dr. Blythe early October 2012 due to pain in my feet experienced when exercising. I was led to a dirty room, complete with a filthy, used dremel laying out on a table and foot shavings splattered all over the ground and table. It looked like a horror scene with foot shavings substituting for blood. I did not envy the guy who operated the dremel and couldn't help but imagine the good Doctor whipping his head back and forth to ward off the foot shavings flying at him in the same manner that Jennifer Beals shook the water from her hair in Flashdance.
The Medical Assistant hurriedly removed the dremel and did a quick, brush off of the table it was on while apologizing. She then asked that I remove my shoes and take a seat . . . yeah . . . gross. For some reason, I decided to comply, taking so much care to keep my feet in mid-air while removing my shoes that you would think a crocodile was going to eat my feet if it touched surface.
The doctor came in quickly -- before I had enough time to change my mind. He gave a very thorough exam -- even watching me walk to see if I was doing something wrong -- and concluded that I must have been wearing bad shoes when exercising and that the pain will eventually go away if I wear proper shoes while warning that it may take a long time and explaining how the foot heals.
What he said made sense. I had been wearing a Fila version of those shoes that claim to tone your butt (you know, the one that Reebok and Sketchers were sued over) when the pain had started but that was YEARS ago (well before the lawsuits) and although the pain has subsided over the last couple of years, I did not make the connection. The doctor encouraged me to wear good shoes and, if in a few months I am having trouble, come back to see him and BRING my running shoes with me so that he can examine the wear and tear. He was right and the pain eventually went away completely. However my interaction with the office didn't end there. If it had, my experience with the Doctor would have overshadowed the office filth and this would have been a 4 star review (5 stars for the Doctor minus 1 star for subjecting me to someone else's foot shavings).
In mid-December, concerned that I didn't get a bill for the early October appointment yet, I called the billing department. Rather than bore you with the details, lets just say that, if I don't pay my medical bills for 2012 in a timely manner, I lose access to the funds within the account from which I pay my 2012 bills. I contacted the billing department a few times on this matter who insisted that he could not bill me until my insurance provider acted and that I would have to just wait.
I FINALLY received my bill in late February 2013 -- too late for the Jan 2013 cutoff to pay 2012 bills. To add insult to injury, the bill showed that my insurance company HAD responded in time (on 12/12/12) -- around the time I had initially called to check on the billing status for my 10/4/12 appointment. It also showed that the billing department forwarded the bill to me for payment on 1/28/13 (although they must have mailed it much later since I didn't get it until late Feb).
In other words, if the billing department had just looked me up at any of the times that I called, he would have been able to tell me the amount that I owed and I would have been able to pay the bill using 2012 account proceeds. Upset, but wanting to put the issue behind me, I called the number on the bill which rang with no answer. After a few days of trying to call the number on the bill, I finally gave up and looked up the office phone number for Mission Podiatry Group so that I can see if I can pay the bill with them instead. The answering machine said they were out from noon to 1pm so I left a message. At 2pm (only an hour after they had returned from lunch), I hadn't heard back so I called Mission Podiatry Group again. I spoke with Alberta who seemed to know who I was and what I was trying to do (she probably heard the voice message already) and did little to mask her pleasure at my frustration. I was able to pay my bill during the phone call however I've never encountered so many obstacles trying to PAY someone money and it is an experience that I would avoid repeating. Thanks, Mission Podiatry Group, for forcing me to pay $173.89 out of pocket unnecessarily when I had an account that could have covered it. Ridiculous . . . read more