Mount Sinai Beth Israel

Reviews 4

ST

Steve Juniper

It is hard for me to comment on the ER and ICU as I was either unconscious or delirious a good part of the time. In fact, having had seizures before, and having been advised by my neurologist NOT to rush off to the hospital and having survived just fine, I do not know if it was necessary at all, although I can understand attending EMT people and others wanting to be cautious. I also acknowledge that family members were alarmed and felt hospital to be "safer." It felt silly to stick me into an ambulance for the 200 foot ride across the street to the hospital when a wheelchair would have sufficed (I could probably have even walked), and I was shocked to get a $1285 bill for that short ride. I felt that the EMT. ER and ICU people were competent and caring, presumably following standard procedures. Once settled into my room (I was 5 days in hospital in all) care seemed perfunctory, maybe in part because of short staff due to the holiday. Doctors were rarely and very briefly seen, although friendly and helpful enough. Although the noise level was typical for hospitals, I fail to see why it is necessary to wake patients every few hours to take blood pressure and temperature nor, when I finally got to sleep, to come clattering into the room at 4 AM with a scale to get me up onto to get my weight every night. Hospitals do tend to not be good places to rest and recover. I felt sorry for the wife or partner of the older Asian man next to me when I realized that she was trying to sleep on two hard-back chairs next to each other and wonder if there wasnt some way she could have been made more comfortable. Also, I had a very persistent cough (likely related to throat irritation from being aspirated), keeping me and, no doubt, my neighbor, awake. This seems to me something nurses should notice and do something about. After I finally asked a nurse she said she would look into it, and finally brought me what seemed to be a single cough drop. If this had been something communicable I would, no doubt, have shared it widely. Finally, it took a full extra day and a half for me to be discharged, supposedly because "may papers were not ready." This was just so ridiculous. If my family hadnt been fussy about it I would have just walked out. Could it be that the hospital wanted to keep me there longer so they could charge for an extra day or two when there were little extra expenses to them? I am not complaining about the individual staff members, as they were uniformly friendly and helpful. The system itself needs attention.

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Nathan Lee Bush

I had a minor finger surgery and a two day stay here and the whole experience was abysmal. The room was drab and I had to share it with another patient. The nurses at night were pretty nice, but the ones in the day were some of the least compassionate people Ive ever encountered. When I would ask for anything they acted completely annoyed, as though this were not their job. The "food" was the least appetizing and least nutritional garbage you can imagine. Just serving it to patients violates the Hippocratic oath. There was pretty minimal activity throughout. They brought me painkillers every few hours and occasionally changed the antibiotics going through my IV, but that was pretty much it. Not rocket science. So when I got the bill my jaw dropped to the floor. They had charged my insurance company over $27,000 for the services rendered, and that was only for the stay, not for all the procedures that were performed. It would be one thing if the doctors and specialists I encountered there were included in that price, but they all sent me separate bills. Paying them all was an equally byzantine process. All told I received dozens of bills from various vendors. Figuring out what I actually owed to everyone is ongoing and is its own monumentally hellish, surreal enterprise. It required me to tap the two brightest accounting minds I know for help and they were similarly vexed and overwhelmed. That all said, the doctors were competent and I never felt like the treatment was lacking. Its just way overpriced and the pricing is not transparent at all (e.g. a doctor comes and talks to you for 10 minutes to explain the antibiotics choice in what seems like a friendly chat, then a few weeks later you get a bill from the doctor for $540.. what???). This experience was the biggest indictment of the US medical system and the case for universal healthcare I can imagine. It was total usury. Motel 6 service for millionaire prices. Mind you, this was for minor finger surgery and an PICC line insertion, not a heart transplant. In France it would have been free with insurance and a few hundred dollars without. The whole experience was a Kafkaesque nightmare. I guess the only real takeaway is to stay as far away from American hospitals as possible going forward, or medical tourism.

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JO

Jose O. Vergez

Mount Sinai saved my mom life. My mother had a stroke in August 2015 and two subsequent strokes, she was attending montefiore for her follow ups, but for some reason she never fully recovered. She kept having complications, like suffering from vertigo and other things afterwards and on June 13 2016, she had a minor stroke, which affected her right eye. She went to her retina doctor on Wednesday because she didnt know at the time it was another stroke. The retina specialist said it was a stroke and sent her home, me being concerned took her on eye and ear infirmary of mount Sinai on 14th street and they realized it was a serious stroke and immediately transferred her to mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital, on 16th street and 1st avenue, and they immediately gave her a neurologist, and emitted her and gave her 24 hour observation. They adjusted her medications appropriately and gave her therapy every single day. Two days after being there her eye adjusted completely and she managed to recover almost 100 percent. She recovered herself a lot more from this new stroke, than she recovered from the stroke she had in 2015; she looks the same as she did even before she had her first stroke. Really attentive and responsible. Unlike the montefiore, we used to come visit her anytime in the day and in the night, and they never made any objections because of visiting hours, they understood we worked in the day and wanted to visit my mom after hours and they accommodated us. Truly high quality service. I highly recommend the mount Sinai chain.

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FA

FaceByDenise

I took my mom to this hospital because she was not feeling well, and i will never come back here again! From 11pm-5am we were sitting in a waiting area (with other patients there as well) in the ER where they checked her and later on did cat-scan.There were other patients there watching. It reminded me of a third world country kind of hospital. Everyone else that needed to be seen was also being checked there which isnt professional at all; I dont need to be hearing if a patient next to us has vaginal discharge; I dont need to smell a homelesses feet because he took his shoes off sitting right across from us. The doctors here are extremely rude; i had asked previously for a bed because my mom was experiencing pain and they said they were full; however, there were about 6 beds that were empty in plain view The only reason we got a bed/room at 5AM was because i told them we were going to leave because we had been waiting for so long with no answer on the cat-scan..HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE AVOID THIS HOSPITAL AND GO ELSE WHERE!!

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