Bascom Palmer Eye Institute

Reviews 3

SA

Sachin Bhandari

Despite their pre-eminent ranking as the number 1 eye hospital, I dont think I would come back to Bascom Palmer for several reasons. First, the Miami facility - which is where the highly advanced research and procedures take place, and where in all likelihood the best physicians are - is solidly booked for weeks upon weeks. Its difficult to get an appointment there. Thats ok if you are only looking for a routine eye exam, but if something is actually causing problems to your eye, youre only options are to show up at the E.R. which is costly, or set up an appointment at one of their other locations. I went to the Plantation facility (still Bascom Palmer) to get a check-up when I was experiencing some eye irritation. When I arrived at the facility, I waited nearly 2 hours to see someone. The first assistant that examined my eye did not dilate my pupils - which is highly unusual, as its a standard practice for most eye-checkups. (A family member of mine is an ophthalmologist). When the doctor finally came to examine my eye, she looked at it for a total of perhaps 5 minutes - this is no exaggeration. My feeling when at the clinic was that the entire office was run like a factory with long wait times, and doctors coming into exams and out of exams as quickly as possible. Although I feel the doctor was likely skilled enough to determine if my irritation was anything serious, I wasnt entirely reassured that she knew what exactly was causing my eye irritation. She chalked it up to inflamed blood vessels in my eye and prescribed some topical steroids. I later learned that the particular eye-drops would make a large numbers of different eye irritations feel better when used while not necessarily addressing the root problem. On my follow up visit weeks later, my eye was still slightly irritated, and again I waited a couple hours, got less than 10 minutes of ACTUAL doctor time, and was told to keep taking the drops. Eventually the problem went away. Later on I got the bill for the visit, and noticed an additional fee tacked on to my co-pay. Apparently Bascom Palmer bills its Plantation office as a hospital visit. I was surprised, because the Plantation office is not in a hospital - its literally just an office in a large building. A normal doctors office, not affiliated with a hospital would never attempt to bill for a hospital visit (again family member is an ophthalmologist). I called up their billing department to argue the point a couple times - which is by the way a complete nightmare, expect a minimum of 25 minutes wait and extremely rude attitude - and received different explanations of the hospital fee depending on who I spoke to, flat denials, and a by the book attitude about how this was just policy.. Well apparently the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about this in 2009, and noted that 13 states are doing investigations about this very practice of billing offices and outpatient clinics associated or owned by hospitals as "hospital visits." In the end, the actual service I got was probably worse than if I had visited a small practice, and I basically got billed double. In the future Ill be looking in my area for a small ophthalmologists practice in-network, and look for a doctor actually willing to put in the proper time doing an eye checkup.

JO

John Marshall

DO NOT COME TO THIS PLACE!!! I HATE to even give this place a 1 Star - it gets a -zero rating from me. DO NOT BOTHER WITH THIS PLACE - Ranked #1 in the world - what a joke - Ranked the worst eye institute in the world more like it. I had to wait 6 + weeks for an appointment with a Dr. Mohamed Abou Shousha. The appointment for my son was first available at 9am because I took him out of school so we could drive the hour and a half to Miami. Arriving early at 8:45am we were checked in which took 30 mins because they had to "check with my insurance" if I was covered - despite giving them this info 6 weeks prior when I made the appointment. At 10:30am we were seen by a nurse and my son was given a mediocre eye exam at best. She also dilated his pupils during this exam. We were then sent to now a different waiting room waiting, given our chart were told to wait for a certain "test" and we would be called. Now it got to 12:15pm (3 hours and 15 mins past our appointment time) - and I finally had enough. I went and got a supervisor and asked what the hell was going on - what were these "tests" we were waiting for? "Sir these are standard tests we order" bla bla - I was then told that after this test my son was about to have I was then going to have to go to the 1st floor FOR YET ANOTHER TEST!!! And We had not even seen a freaking doctor yet!!!!! What were they testing for?? I was told it would actually be closer to 2pm BY THE TIME I SAW MY DOCTOR!!! 5 hours after my sons appointment time!! I told the supervisor I saw to cancel my appointment and we were out of there!! I told her to make sure I dont get billed for anything - so we left - and with my sons pupils dilated (they stayed dilated for a further 24 hours!!) All this and my son never even saw a doctor!!! This place is a first class lesson in insurance gouging! All I wanted was a doctor to look at the spot in my sons eye first - then I would have been happy to move forward. But the series of tests was plainly ridiculous. DO NOT and I repeat DO NOT COME TO The Bascom Palmer Eye Institute - the place is a joke.

A

A Private User

Well, if I could've commented with out a single star I would have..... I woke up@ 3 a.m. in excruciating pain that felt like my eye was being torn out of my head. I called around to different eye doctors and they all referred me to the emergency department @ Bascom Palmer. Being the fact that im working out of town, I didn't have much choice. So my girlfriend drove me up there. They treated me for chronic cornea erosion, which required them 2 scrape my eyeball with a razor like device 2 get the top layer of cornea removed. Which in return, left all my nerve endings exposed...... I was told that I could possibly go back 2 work the next day and they gave me a script for some antibiotic ointment 2 apply 4 times daily. They also said that the best way for it 2 heal would be 2 sleep. I was missing only 1 thing..... something for pain!!!! I don't know how many of those candy-assed self centered pricks of doctors up there have ever had their cornea's scraped with a razor blade, but if they did, I bet all I have and all I could borrow that they would definitely want something 2 ease the pain. We called back later that evening & they were rude & said there was nothing else they could do & that rest was the best medicine. Well I may have gotten 2 1/2 hrs all night. They have NOOOO compassion, or people skills, we're merely a number for more grant money & I don't know who rated them #1 , but apparently they have never been 2 a real doctor before. I WOULD NEVER go there again nor would I recommend any one else.....