Frank Brown

Review of Center Orthopedic & Neurosurge...

I wish I could rate my most recent visit to The Ce...

I wish I could rate my most recent visit to The Center, but I can't, because I didn't have one. In early January, I visited my primary care office with severe back pain that had been increasing since December. The NP who saw me referred me to The Center, possibly for a trigger point injection. A week later, the pain was worse, and I still hadn't heard a whisper from The Center, so I called them. The receptionist told me that my case was "under review." I asked what that meant, and she said that the team was deciding which doctor to assign it to. I was puzzled, because it didn't seem to be a problem that would require extensive analysis at this stage, but I just emphasized that the pain was quite severe, enough so that I had left work early that day. I'd thought that humanizing the report a bit might help her understand the relative urgency, but she seemed indifferent, and she assured me that they'd get back to me. A few days later, the pain was disablingly severe enough that I got in touch with my primary care doctor, who immediately sent me on a different, and actually helpful, route (she was excellent). About a MONTH after the original referral, I got a chirpy message from a Center receptionist saying that they had received the referral. I ignored the call. Several days later, when they called back, I told the receptionist that that ship had sailed long ago, and she cheerfully went away. I myself don't feel too cheerful about The Center. I can see a place getting busy, but that kind of delay, with zero communication, seems to me inexcusably unprofessional and indicative of a callously cavalier attitude toward patients.