Atlas Pet Clinic

Reviews 3

AD

Adam

Dr.Charlie helped SAVE my 3 year old beautiful German Shepherd Titan life !!! My son did not have any symptoms when we left for vacation and of course he went with us. We got back a couple of weeks later and he acted real strange. It appeared he did not recognize the house and was acting very strange. We took him to our vet that we have used and known for over 20 years. It appeared my spontaneous request for assistance was not well received. I got attitudes from some of his staff. We went anyway as I said we had used him for 20 years. Titan was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Now I would agree he had almost every symptom of Lyme disease but the SNAP test was not positive and I have read this test could have a false positive as well. We started antibiotics. At first they seem to work but on the fourth day Titan began to decline rapidly and was yelling in pain each time he tried to stand up. I called back and told his staff I would be bringing Titan back in. The staff was now even more disliking me. We went in and they did some x-rays. I prepared a typed questionnaire to assist with our session being expeditious since I did not have a formal appointment. I was told Titan has another issue that was "Not a big deal". It looked like there was too little separation in one of his vertebraes and with some pain medications and rest along with an anti-inflammatory medication this should be okay. We left that morning (after paying $500.00 in that week) with none of my questions answered which I had taken the time to type out and to top it off one of the techs said, "We dont need to see Titan next week, he just wants you to call and let us know how hes doing and we dont need to see you either." I thought, WOW... You dont need to see me?..... I guess this was an indicator of I was too much trouble and they prefer I take my son somewhere else. Now this is a doctor I have used for over 20 years and helped him grow from a small window shop in a strip mall to a large stand-alone practice. We heard about Dr. Charlie. We had to go see him. Dr. Charlie took over 30 minutes with Titan and said he did not look good and he thought Titan needed immediate aggressive help or basically he was not going to make it. Dr. Charlie recommended we go as soon as we could and get an appointment with Advanced Veterinary Specialists (AVS) in Maitland. Titan needed to be seen by a Neurologist, Neurosurgeon, and DVM there. Within 2 hours Dr. Charlie typed a referral and within 48 hours we had an appointment. After an entire day of testing and $1800.00 later, (x-ray, CT, Ultrasound, Neurological exam, blood work and urinalysis the lab results determined Titan had disseminated Aspergillosis. This is a fungus which normally carries a death warrant. He also has discospondylitis in his spine. This story could be a lot longer but now Titan takes a bunch of medicine each day and he is fighting for his life. He is doing much better everyday. God is really taking care of him and is healing him. I have raised German Shepherds most of my life and each has had different problems but I must say that TITAN is very special. He has the best temperament of any Ive had. He is very special. He is a sweet adorable, beautiful boy and my child! Dr.Charlie and all of his staff rock! Dr. Smith and the staff at AVS rock too! Great staff, Awesome Doctor! Dr. Charlie was very thorough, straight forward and not rushed. Very informative and personable. Autumn was the main person I spoke to on the phone a few times and she was great. They called the day after checking on my boy Titan. The office is clean and the wait was not long at all. We had an appointment. I would highly recommend this practice. It appears I cannot add another review so this is an edit of my original post. My wife and I wish to THANK DR. CHARLIE the entire STAFF for all of your help and your excellent service. I have never heard No or call back later or an attitude of being put out. THEY CARE. Dr. Charlie will have a huge practice very soon so you better get in while you can. THANK YOU!

KA

Katie Carlson

I wish I could give half stars because 2 feels low, but 3 feels high. I came to Atlas on a recommendation. I will start by saying they have an AWESOME referral/online feedback program. I also need to mention that the support staff is fantastic. Helpful, and so sweet. Dr. Charlie himself is also very nice an approachable. The downsides however, that I encountered and the reasons for my lower rating are that, first of all they are a very small location. They look to only have about 3 patient rooms. And they only have one waiting room, as opposed to several places I have been that have a cat waiting room and a dog waiting room. So everyone waiting to get in a patient room is sitting (or standing) in the waiting area with their pets, all of which are barking or whining or hissing or growling. I had to wait about 40 minutes to get back into a room and then another 20ish before the doctor came in. Again Dr. Charlie was friendly and answered all my questions, but I felt like I was being talked to as a child, or a first time pet owner. My dog is 10, Im familiar with his health issues and how to treat them, but I almost felt like I was being talked down to when he was explaining things to me. The final factor is pricing. I thought the pricing was fair, they had a good deal on shots and I didnt feel like I was being taken advantage of. However, and the number one reason for my lower rating is that there are NO PAYMENT PLANS OR CREDIT OPTIONS. And they dont tell you this until you are checking out. I have CareCredit which I have always used for larger vet bills in the past, but they do not accept it, nor do they offer any kind of credit card or payment plan. I had almost a $300 bill which I had to put on my debit card, eating into funds I had allocated for groceries for the month. Had I known ahead of time that they dont offer any payment plans I would have opted for a more basic plan instead of the full package. Needless to say I will NOT be coming back, nor will I recommend to any friends and family, but this is also in part because I traveled 45 minutes from east Orlando on recommendation that this place was the best. But if your are local in Clermont and have basic (cheap) care needs, with quality customer service then this is a not a bad place.

KA

Kara Friedmann

Dr. Charlie and his crew at the Atlas Pet Clinic are restoring my faith in the pet care world. We had been using Banfield for several years and keeping it through living in two different states because we thought we were saving money with their insurance program, but every visit they would "find" something that they needed to charge us for or to "scare" us with concerning our pets health. They never seemed to review our pets records before our visits and would act like they discovered the dogs had allergies. I would say, "Well if you had taken the time to read the file you would see we have been seeing you guys for that for years." Bad vets there in my opinion. We kept going because we thought we were doing the right thing for our pets. But things just kept getting worse with Banfield and I didnt trust them anymore. I wound up taking one of our cats to Atlas because I was worried he might have had urine crystals by his behavior and didnt trust Banfield to look him over. Dr Charlie gave him a thorough exam and told me he was fine but to keep an eye on him if anything changed. The cat was fine. I was so impressed with his care and concern for my cat during the visit that I talked my husband into letting Dr Charlie check out one of our dogs as I really wanted to leave Banfield. Once again Dr Charlie was great with our pet. He gave our dog a thorough exam and could even tell how many poops he had in him haha. He gave great advice and saved us a dental cleaning by showing us how to take the tarter off of his teeth and what type of toothpaste we should buy for him. His staff was great too. There was an experienced tech helping train a new tech and both of them were great loving on our dog and answering questions. My husband was so impressed it finally pushed him to want to cancel Banfield and only use Dr. Charlie. Even without the special discount we were getting with Banfield Atlas is much less costly and it is nice having a vet who actually cares and takes the time with our pets.We left the vet appointment smiling. Atlas is a great place to take your pets. I cant recommend him highly enough, but I will post this everywhere I can to help tell people how great they are.