Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Reviews 3

RO

Robert Parhami

A month after my father died Cedars sent a bill for $606,285.27 for 9 hours of service. Five hours of surgery and four hours on machines keeping my 87 year old dad alive, on August 15, 2013. Various people have said to me that if my father had 95% blockage and required a quadruple bypass, a stint surgery was not appropriate. We were told this would be an overnight procedure with little risk. After the surgery, five hours in waiting room, with no feedback, the doctor took me to an office, showed me a video of his heart beating. He said, after beginning the procedure, my father wanted to stop the procedure and was restrained and anesthetized. He said, he has seen people recover from worst situations. I sensed the worst and asked the nurse who walked me to his room, if my father would make it through the night. She said, he is still losing blood pressure and that is unlikely. I asked if I should call my family and she advised me to do so now. Several people were working on my dad when I got to his room. The doctor had implied to me that there was still a chance. I have designed medical systems in the past. I asked about several of the displays on the machines in his room that did not show realistic readings. They said those devices are not working right. The display at the nurse desk was the only one I could see that seemed accurate. It showed very low (systolic 50), diminishing blood pressure. My dads belly had swollen to an unnatural level. The doctor kept giving him Sodium Bicarb because his blood was registering acidic. I was told he was brought back ten times during the operation. Even when my mother, brother an sister arrived, the doctors said, "He is very sick." We all felt he was dead already. After three hours or so of watching them, I said to the doctor, "Is he being kept alive by machines and will he be able to live without them in the future? My father had expressly forbid that." The doctor at that point said, "I understand, okay." At that time they turned off the machines and called the time of death. After his death, the doctor said, he did not want to give up because my father reminded him of his grandfather. Everyone else in his room and hallway outside, next to the nurse station, had disappeared. My sister found someone to remove the equipment and attachments from his body. She wanted to hug and kiss him. We were given his small bag of belongings to take home. We received the attached bill last week. It shows a Medicare discount of $519,194.90 and a Medicare payment of $85,906.37 applied. I believe if the operation was successful, they would have billed a fraction of the $85,906.37. I wonder what Cedar Sanai would do if the patient had any assets, and or did not have Medicare, and or no health insurance.

TO

Tom Cassidy

75% of my experiences here have been bad. Ive been coming here frequently since September because my girlfriend started having issues with her transplanted kidney. Since then we have repeatedly dealt with uninterested nurses, lack of communication between doctors, and even a lack of communication and interest between doctor and patient. My girlfriend has an autoimmune disease, called microscopic polyangititis, which took her original kidneys when she was 12, and when she told the doctors here that she had this, they told her that she didnt because it didnt show in her blood work. This would be normal most of the time, but her disease takes a very in depth kind of blood test to see that takes two weeks to get results from, but rather than look at her previous medical history, the doctors went ahead as if she didnt have the disease and tried to take her off the medication that was keeping her disease at bay. She has allergies to a number of medications and antibiotics, and one of the three doctors looking over her gave her an antibiotic that was on her chart as her being allergic to it, which caused her to itch all over her body. He attributes this to something to do with her Peritoneal Dialysis catheter (for real?) and then THE NURSE realized they were giving her an antibiotic she was allergic to. They kept food and liquid out of her stomach for over 30 hours while she waited for a Ct scan that took five minutes. Just to be clear, they told her that she was scheduled for a ct scan and told her, for 30 hours, that it was "happening soon so she couldnt eat anything." When the surgeons took her Peritoneal catheter out, they didnt use a local anesthetic, which caused an unnecessary amount of pain around her exit site. She told the dietician and wrote on her cafeteria form that she was lactose intolerant and they consistently gave her foods that contained dairy. She had three doctors looking at her at different times and they were each taking her off and putting her on medications. When one doctor with switch her medications, then next would come in with a puzzled look on his face as to why she got taken off that medication and put her back on it. This went on for a few days until finally the doctors started communicating with each other. This place has an air of false superiority about it, even though they cant be bothered to do something elemental like request a transplant recipients previous medical history. The food for patients and in the cafeteria sucks. This places only saving grace is that they have an awesome movie selection and their own Starbucks in the plaza.

ME

Melissa vasquez

We went to closest ER because our 17 month old suddenly wouldnt walk , became dizzy , and her eyes were rolling around. We had to fight for quality care , or any care from the beginning. They only gave us a room because one triage nurse, nice ,with reddish hair pushed for it, saying she was concerned. We spent hours in the room while my baby suffered , and cried and when I came out of room to look for a DR because my baby could still not stand up on her own , my nurse , short young Asian nurse threatened to call security because they didnt want to hear my sick child crying. Another nurse named Crissy, blonde, reddish hair was extremely rude, started looking through my diaper bag without my permission, as I told her twice to please stop. Dr mc nril , was condescending. The entire staff spent hours asking same questions over and over and often protrayed them selves as if we were ob trial, and when I asked the social worker, they told me cedars Sinai spent hours to rule out child abuse , while unfounded and no indication of abuse was ever present they discriminated against us and didnt provide proper care In a timely manner. Had my daughter ingested anytging or had she really had a seizure it would have been to late to treat. We sat for 5 hours before seeing a Dr and have any tests ordered. They were disrespectful to us and failed in diagnosing and treating my daughter. They watched my daughter for all of 10 seconds , attempt to walk , while we had been in Er for at least 12 hours, and when we are getting ready to be discharged. Dr Jacqueline comes in threatened to call social worker , at 3 am because my baby is finally asleep , and she now realized that maybe theres a problem , yet she still refuses to admit her , but insists I wake her up to make her walk . then some Dr walks in doesnt introduce himself , and says we can leave, I later found out his name was ghandi . I would give no stars if I could I will be reaching our to CEO . to receive an apologies from this hospital. And Im looking into charges against the nurse looking thru my property. I have since taken my sick child else where , and first recommendation was to see a pediatric neurologist, cedars never offered us this , yet they spent hours drawing blood on my daughter for tests I never approved , and xrays to check for broken bones , when it was clear she was having a. Neurology problem not being abused.