Cuquita Rangel

Review of Austin Neurology & Sleep Assoc...

Dr Howard is a gifted and straight-forward neurolo...

Dr Howard is a gifted and straight-forward neurologist that I respect very much. If I could rate this place by her alone, it would get at least 4 stars. However, she suffers from the same problem that many doctors face; she has a flaky, amazingly rude, unprofessional, and (to put it plainly) borderline ghetto-ass staff that does a barely perceptible job of covering up their own tacky personalities when in their place of employment. Out of the bunch, maybe two are decent, but overall, it s a basket of rotten apples poisoning her practice. When doing google research to find a replacement for her, I was really surprised to see Dr Howard s practice get the lowest reviews of almost every other practice in town, which is what inspired me to put aside a few minutes of my time to maybe give some more explanation on behalf of the office and in defense of the doctor.

Like all professsionals who rely on an admin staff, she trusts them a little too much because their job is to make sure she can do hers without the hassle. She is out of touch with how bad they really are. I m not only speaking from a place of personal disappointment from several years of dealing with them, Im also speaking objectively as someone who has experience in their field. Lengthy turnover times for return and follow-up calls to patients, constant mistakes over the same repetitive tasks, not relaying information accurately, not notifying patients of changes in staff or policy, while also managing to be unapologetic, monotone, miserable-looking, and cringe-inducing in their lack of social graces. Unless they are being treated abysmally when patients aren t around, they have no excuse for the rbf and always Iooking as though someone was holding a turd under their noses just because they have to do their jobs, which occasionally (in their case, probably frequently) have to deal with complex or uncomfortable situations. Several years of dumb mistakes and bad attitudes is not something I realized should have been documenting or complaining about. That s on me.

My favorite was when I asked who they report to, as in who is their direct supervisor and I was told they don t have one. No honey, that means the doctor is your manager. Either they were lying and they DO have an office manager, or they cover their own butts with the doctors by throwing patients under the bus. I ll never know, but now it isn t my problem. I am inclined to want to say mostly mean, ugly things about individuals but that would be pointless because if you choose to go to this practice, you ll eventually see for yourself and your experience will vary depending on who you interact with by phone, in person, and under varying circumstances.

If they read this, what I m sure they would cite was that I was dropped from the practice for somehow breaching my meds contract, but I m not really sure. The reason I m not sure is because they point blank refused to let me have any contact with the doctor to ask why, tried to force me sign a verification document stating that I understood (which when I refused was met with major hostility) and only verbally told me that I picked up more than what I was prescribed. Fine, I figured all I can do is research to see if there may have been an error down the line. I went through records with my pharmacy, my gp, and my other specialists to make sure there were no duplicates over the years. I also asked my long-term pharmacist if she could access the same system that hospital pharmacists have to verify every prescription I ve ever picked up. No discrepancies there either.

After all that, at one point they told me the doctor (the other partner doctor whom I have never met) has said the decision was final. Ha. Ha. Ha. NOT ONCE did I ever asked to be kept as a patient. After being treated that way, why in the world would I want to keep giving them my money? I wanted an explanation of the decision and I wanted to make it clear I did not violate anything. If they care to offer that information, I m happy to hear it, even if it s not what I want to hear.