Upper Chesapeake Health Reviews

I've had blood work completed three times over the past year.
I've only experienced friendly, professional service.

Emergency room is ridiculous, extremely slow and rude nurses. Patients complaining on the service heard in other rooms. Never seen a more dysfunctional medical place. Be prepared to stay a real long time before receiving any medical help!

Wonderful service and care for my grandmother at the end of her life. Amazingly kind and attentive nurses.

First I just have to say that there is ONE spectacular staff member at this hospital! Her name is Michelle, she's a triage nurse, straight shooter, informative, kind, caring, intelligent and all around good at her job! (I've witnessed her with more patients than just myself!) (In case anyone in upper management wants to reward her, she works late nights at least she did on 1/7/17).

The hospital though, omg so terrible! Though all MD hospital ER's are consistently slow and not too accommodating
Maybe I've been spoiled too much by the A+ Hospitals in CO and FL, but I thought it was standard procedure to keep people SPEWING germs due to serious or just super icky illnesses away from the majority of others even if it means taking them back and letting them sit on stretchers in hallways.. here, everyone is crammed together, they're super short-staffed! And those who are or were working, still take their sweet time, since they themselves "have ALL night ahead..." of them (as I actually heard them telling eachother)! <-This was all before I saw Michelle come in (so don't include her lol).
Anyway, JUST wait-time ranges from 2-8hrs, and the minimum time to get in and out is at least 9-11 hours MINIMUM! That's INSANE! people are puking, hollering and cursing in pain, crying, laying on stretchers acting like they're dying, and somehow all just straight hanging in the E.R waiting room! This should be a damn drama series IJS!!!

Ps. Regardless of the time people wait to be seen (from what I keep hearing) some of the doctors are not compassionate and have been known to quickly eye charts/self-judge people, their ailments and decide on the spot if they can (aka. WANT) to be helpful or send you packing, like I said, regardless* of how long you spent your priceless time waiting to see him/her (probably catching a few things you didn't go in there with)!
For the record though, that's what a few ppl I shared waiting room time with had told me... this was not my personal experience. I spent an unfortunate 5- hours waiting and then decided to leave after being told I might just waste 5 few more hours of my time just to not get the help I am seeking. Ouch

Had my daughter teeth operation in this hospital. It was very organize in and out. Staff made my 6 years old so comfy and happy that she forgot about everything and was smiling whole time until they put her to sleep.

Wife was experiencing horrible chest pain and heart palpitations and it took over 5 hours for her to be seen. We were told the wait would be an hour, not over 5 hours. I get that it's an ER but other hospitals are a lot more organized. Each time we asked she was always "next in line." Get it together Upper Chesapeake!!

Here is my loose change about Upper Chesapeake. Taking a loved one to this hospital is like saying, "I want to put my loved one in harm's way." DO NOT EVER take someone with any gastric intestinal issues to this place. Provided the Upper Chesapeake with all the medical records from a previous hospital regarding my wife's condition. The arrogance was astounding. They never reviewed any records. Their inaction could have resulted in my wife having her much of her intestines removed. I wish there was a quarter star rating (Star Search had one).

I love how I've been treated at Upper Cheasapeke. I've had surgeries here,and I'm being treated at the new Kauffman Cancer Center. Thank you for bringing good care to our community.

I've never before seen a place put so much emphasis on money rather than patient care. Caseworkers are not there for the patient. They are there to watch dollars!

STAY AWAY FROM THIS E.R. TERRIBLE SERVICE, EXTREMELY LONG and UNREASONABLE WAIT TIME, WAIT TIME is ORDERs OF MAGNITUDE ABOVE NATIONAL AVERAGE TIME.

I went to the emergency room because I was having severe pain in my side/back. Doctor said it maybe my kidneys or muscle spasms. I didn't have to wait long and I was seen very quickly so I give them 4 stars but when I left out the average wait time was 350 minutes for the remaining people in the waiting area....that's insane.

Overall, the care was great. The nursing staff are caring and diligent, the Doctors are the same. Communication between the departments was sometimes a bit slack, causing unnecessary stress in an already stressful situation. Thanks for caring for our family member.

I came in 5 and a half weeks pregnant, bleeding, and in pain. I came by ambulance and they made me sit out in the waiting room for over 5 hours. I was supposed to give birth here but the staff are unprofessional and they are unethical. They do not care about the wellbeing of a person at all. The registration staff got smart with me trying to tell me how to be a patient. DO NOT go to this hospital. It is not worth it. They have terrible customer service.

3/25/19 After being sent there by an urgent care center who called ahead and recommended I be admitted stat for IV antibiotics, the ER staff watched me stumbling around the lobby for hours delirious from sepsis and did nothing - even after assessment by an incompetent triage RN. I eventually had to go to a different hospital - I LITERALLY would have died if I stayed there. If the staff can t recognize textbook signs of sepsis - even when they were told ahead of time to expect them - you are putting your life in danger by going to this place.
There are annual unpublished stats that predict whether someone is more or less likely to die from certain conditions when you present to each hospital. This place obviously sets the undesirable end of the curve. I will being filing a complaint with JCAHO.

My 93 year old Father was rushed to the hospital because he couldn't shallow. They did an upper endoscopy on him at 12:30am at 4:30 am they put him in an ambulance and sent him home. He was out of it and spitting up blood, 911 was called and he was taken back to the hospital and admitted. The surgery was done directly from the ER, he was never admitted.

Who in their right mind sends home a 93 year old 4 hours after surgery. Long story short he never recovered and passed away.

If you HAVE to go to this hospital have a family member present NO matter what especially in the ER. This place is malpractice central!

This place is pretty bad, and it starts at the front door. The paraprofessional staff is stocked with country bumpkins who have struck it big with a job at the hospital. As such, the don't (or act like they don't) know basic healthcare. Everyone shouts your personal and health information around in flagrant violation of Privacy and HIPPA laws. The wait for anything is ridiculous, although not nearly as bad as their sister hospital Harford Memorial. Once you actually see a doctor, it's hit or miss, but the nurses and paraprofessionals are consistently disappointing. All that being said, I'll keep it simple: if it's a matter of life or limb, swallow your pride and come here (you really don't have a choice). However, if you can manage it, make the drive to Baltimore/Delaware/etc., and go somewhere better. Either way, avoid Harford Memorial.

Had a doctor order for 2 blood test for my child. Parking was horrible. The woman checking us in never heard of Cigna insurance. They drew the wrong tests, I called and the manager said they wouldn't hill. 2 months later I get a bill and can't get a hold of anyone competent. Good luck if you end up here because you may not make it out.

9 hour wait for a 5 minute procedure...one word RIDICULOUS. While the staff are nice enough they are really slow and not very attentive. This place needs some real reform on the way they do things.

EXCELLENT EXPERIENCE FOR MY WIFE, MARIE ,STARTING FROM HER BEING ADMITTED IN ER ,TO HER BEING RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL! Doctors, nurses showed great knowledge and compassion!

Very grateful for the care they provide to my grandmother.

My daughter was admitted to the emergency room. She was seen very quickly and then sent to Pediatrics a few hours later. She has had numerous nurses and physicians checking on her. The nurses and doctors and the therapists have all been very friendly, compassionate and made my daughter comfortable. She has been in the pediatric section for 4 days now and I have been impressed by the professionalism and demeanor of the staff. My daughter said the food was pretty good as well....When I was a kid one did not want to eat the hospital food. Bravo Upper Chesapeake!

By far the worst hospital I've said it since it's been here in it's still the same!!!!!!if u wanna die come to this place

I have had the worst experience with this hospital and would rather suffer than ever go back there again. I went in to the emergency center with a possible broken foot that was pretty painful and very swollen. I was triaged and x-rayed very quickly. But that was the only plus for this place. While being x-rayed for a POSSIBLE BROKEN FOOT, the technician was not very friendly and not gentle at all! She pushed my foot around with no kindness for the injury and even pushed right on the exact injured spot trying to push my foot into place. After X-rays I waited for over an hour and a half to be seen. When I got back to the room the nurse asked a bunch of routine questions and the doctor came in. He touched my foot. Said he couldn't see anything on the x-rays. Told me that someone would call me the next day if they find anything. He said there was probably something wrong though because of the swelling. You went to school for that!! I knew that because I was there!!! This guy was ridiculous. Then I waited another 15 minutes for my discharge papers. I waited almost 2 hours for a 3 minute appointment that was useless!! Unacceptable. This place has the worst track history. Not even sure why I went but I will never go back there again and will deter anyone I ever meet from going as well.

I would like to thank the entire staff from housekeeping,food service,the ER, the people from Saint Margaret's all the cardiologist, tech,nurses on IMC. & Dr. Kambour! They were able to confirm & have Boston Scientific adjust my life line ( my pacemaker). I've been in many hospitals this year & told I was seeing artifactts. Thank you for saving me! Upper Chesapeake is clean the staff friendly , kind , caring & very professional. I will never forget anyone. God Bless

Very extended wait times unless you come in by a ambulance. You get categorized on how you present not how you tell them you feel and then the wait games begin. Today I've been waiting for 2.5 hours and the staff is very unsympathetic to how I'm feeling this resulting to others being put in front of me. Very bad experience when you feel like crap.

One of the worst hospitals from the drs and the nurses, no bedside manners and lack of care and concern for patients its ridiculous how the hospitals n drs are now and if you have medicaid you get treated even worse n non priority they don't want to do no kind of test on you or go that extra mile to find out what is wrong with you and tell you there only so much they can do in the e.r. when they can actually keep you and admit you and perform these tests in different parts of the hospital instead rather kick you out and not help you and act like they do all this stuff by just checking your urine and blood

Very blessed to have come here. Was in the emergency room, and when I first arrived someone helped me out of my cae because I couldn't walk. male nurse I had was very good and gave me all my needs. I felt very pampered here and they made sure my stay was good. Though they lacked doing some things (not putting a cap on my IV, cafeteria closing at 1PM, etc) I heavily enjoyed Mike our male nurse. Thank you so much!

Er is terrible you re better off having a street surgeon

So helpful. Nurses and doctors were kind and compassionate when my mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Once we arrived to the emergency room people had been waiting there for 5 hours. Coming to find out during the night only a section of the Emergency Room works and at 7 am more medical personnel comes in to service the people waiting. My wife was admitted into the hospital for two days. For the most part I can say that medical personnel was OK until the last day she was there. Her last nurse had a terrible attitude. At the time of her medicine the nurse didn't take any precautions whatsoever and injected my wife in a very abrupt way. My wife yelled and the only thing she said was that the medicine hurts, no I am sorry, no can I do something to help you pain, nothing. After hours of waiting for her discharge the nurse never checked with the doctors to get an update, I arrive to the hospital and the only reason that the nurse knew about the discharge it was because I told her. At the same time, my wife had been complaining about a terrible headache all day but the nurse never brought her right medication. After much arguing we decided to leave without the medication and my wife still felt weak. I have never had such poor experience with a nurse as what we did at this Hospital. Just a pitiful experience overall, this nurse was the rudest, unkind person that I have dealt with.

Communication is absolute garbage. Thursday grandma was admitted for possible pnemonia and now here it is Monday and she is on a morphine drip and on hospice. Would of liked to have gotten a call about what happened between Thursday and today. I thank the hospice team for hearing me out and getting the information I needed to understand why she is on morphine and I thank them again for getting a chaplain in to see her after the hospital failed to fill that ONE request 9 hours ago for her final prayer.
I called the "legal" department and was told they couldn't do anything I needed to go through hospice for answers???? What a joke.

Got to Upper Chesapeake at 4:30pm for extreme back pain, didn t go to triage till 5:30pm didn t get registered till 6pm. Continued to go up and ask how long and they told us everytime it would be soon! We sat in the waiting room till almost 9pm.. the staff and nurses were disrespectful and were NO HELP AT ALL! This is not a hospital I would recommend going to, they are rude and disrespectful and honestly should be sewed. They had 5 people come in with signs of the flu and these people looked TERRIBLE, they were also sitting in the waiting room just as long as us! That is not how a hospital should run! I get your busy and have a lot of people but that s still no excuse to be disrespectful and makes us feel like we cant ask a question without being attacked! for someone who works in the healthcare field I would never work here or even come to Upper Chesapeake again for help! GET YOUR HOSPITAL TOGETHER!!!

Three years ago I was there with a severe bacterial infection in my lover GI tract that caused a pancreatic attack. I was in and out for three days. On the fourth day I realized I was still wearing the pj's I arrived in. On the fourth morning, I asked a nurse or assistant nurse to please provide me with a towel, toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant so I could at least freshen up. As I was signing the discharge papers those things were brought to me. It took almost 6 hours to get a simple Tylenol for my headache. My back started to ache badly from being in a bed for three days, I asked for a heating pad and I got one of those little warm up packs. This stay costs me over $8,000. The only good thing I can say about this place was the doctor who attended to me. And they wouldn't even get one start if I didn't have to in order to post this review.

Took a family member to the ER today for a possible serious medical issue. She waited over 5 hours for a nurse to come into the waiting area to advise patients that "they don't have a doctor on clock for low priority" when a patient asked why they don't have a doctor come down to the ER they said that the doctor would not come down for it. What kind of negligence medical facility is this? Drive a extra 10 mins to franklin square !!

My wife was admitted to triage and they won't give us a pin code to get back into the unit. So I have to go outside the hospital in single digit weather just to get to the cafeteria. Everyone seems to look at me like I have two heads every time I ask them a simple question.

My mom was admitted on a Saturday and needed to be admitted for dehydration. Having little cognition, hearing, speech and being lethargic previous to this, we were eased into understanding she needed hospice care. The doctor from the floor where she was to be admitted came to the E.R. before admitting her and eased the transition. The pre-visit and the staff both in the E.R. and the floor were very helpful at every step.

Doubled over in tears from chest pain for over three hours before ER took me back. Avoid this ER. It'll be faster to drive to a hospital like hopkins

Thee absolute LONGEST wait in a hospital EVER of the entire United states of America. I've been in the waiting room for 3hrs now. The left side of my face and legs are numb and I believe I just had a minor stroke. Pray for me everyone please

Patient beware - Dr. Fountain has doctor's and PA's working at Upper Chesapeake Hospital Emergency room in Bel Air, Maryland that are not in -network with the Upper Chesapeake Hospital. If you go there and expect to be in-network with your insurance provider you better ask first. I received a $995.00 Out-of-Network bill from Dr. Fontain's office for a doctor to look at an xray of my knee, give me a brace and tell me to see a surgeon. <15 minutes of his time at ~$66 dollars a minute! God help the poor soul who winds up there with a serious injury that requires extension care and then receives an out-network- bill for several thousand dollars or more. Everything your insurance says they cover in-network with Chesapeake hospital is thrown out the window. You are on you own for the balance of the bill. The hospital should not allow this and the Maryland Insurance Administration is going to hear about it. This is Bait and Switch and amounts to insurance fraud and price gouging. Doctor Fountain took over EMS operations for Harford County in 2019 and this is what you are now getting folks. Deceived and ripped off by the Upper Chesapeake Emergency Medicine Physicians., PPLC.

Make sure you are covered as Outpatient Hospital visit. They will not tell you that. Otherwise, you WILL get a BIG bill.

One of the worst hospitals I ever been to,the nursing staff rude as the doctors are too !! I wasn't even seen by a real Dr I was seen by a Drs. Nurse and a guy trying to become a doctor the compassion was none and wasn't trying to listen to what was going on with me when I was trying to tell them they gave me attitude n I was in pain n had alot of concerns due to my health after waiting 6 hours just to get into the back they only want to do basic work n kick you out without trying to find out what is really going on with your body and if I'm not mistaking I thought doctors take an oath becoming a doctor it's like they don't care and don't have no compassion and it's very upsetting how bad the health care system has become now I would never recommend this hospital

I went to patient first with severe lower abdominal pain, went for an X-ray, they called and said I had a lacerated spleen and to get to the er asap. I waited 3.5 hours in the waiting room before getting a room. I almost wish I would've died so my family could sue. Flash forward 6 years, my boyfriend has severe upper abdominal pain, I mean doubled over throwing up pain. Went to er st 4am waited maybe 20 minutes which was nice, for the er doctor to tell him there's nothing he could do and didn't bother running any tests. My bf had gastric bypass a year prior and even after telling the doc it wasn't his stomach that hurt, it was higher up, he got a nasty attitude and said "sorry, can't help. You need to call your bariatric surgeon". Ended up being gallstones has lodged in his liver. Good job.

Go to the ER yesterday for a bad tooth that I could feel it starting to get infected. They send me home with antibiotics and ibuprofen. Discharge papers said to return to the ER if any swelling occurs which it did. So I go back to the ER and they just send me home with doing nothing and told me to come back if it doesn't get any better by tomorrow. It's clear the antibiotics are not working when it look like I have a golf ball in my cheek after I have been on antibiotics for 24hrs now

My experience at this hospital was great. I had a bronchoscopy and was treated extremely well by all the nurses. The doctor who performed the procedure explained everything in detail to me. The procedure went well, and I was completely satisfied with the care I received.

Waited 5 hours, my legs kept throbbing and I was in a lot of pain. 2 hrs in I was helped then brought right back to the waiting room. 3 hours later I finally got seen and they didn't tell me what was wrong at all they put me in a boot and sent me home and didn't even take the time to check me out.

NOT the first time experiencing this Emergency Room Nursing Staff. Very rude and uncaring Nursing Staff. You have to tell them to do things for the patient that they should automatically be doing instead of eating or 'catching up' with others, standing around and generally not doing anything when the patient is extremely in need of attention. Patient was released and sent home walking, no one taking you to the door in a wheel chair - just told 'you can leave now'.

Wish I could give zero stars. Emergency wait room is atrocious. Came in per doctor recommendation for excruciating back pain. Arrived at 2:45PM. It is now 2:29AM and I have yet to be taken in. Shameful and negligent.....
Update. Was seen at 4AM but by that point I decided that I did not want to receive any treatment from a hospital who neglects patients and conditions in the waiting room. I waited see the doctor, told her of my concerns, and left. For most of the evening there was a disheveled looking man stumbling around in the ER. He was shouting loudly and walking up and down in the waiting room. Then he passed out on the floor. Later he got in a wheelchair and was wheeling his way down the aisles and running into people. He yelled at an elderly woman to move and get out of his way so that he could take over a couch. She got up and then he willed his way through others to get to a couch where passed out again and you could see he had soiled himself. The security guards did nothing to address the situation. It was not a safe environment. Patients have rights to receive respect, consideration, and compassion--those in Upper Chesapeake's waiting room last night were denied those rights.

My girl friend had a hysterectomy done and im sure the pain is horrible. She is a smoker. Well ive been here for 5 hours and they ask about the pain level and if she smoked. Nurse Sue said i will get you something for pain and a nicotine patch. Well haven't seen either one. I moved the table so i could sit next to her and comfort my girlfriend. I went down to smoke and nurse Sue moved the table and chair to separate us and said the table has to stay here. This place is unbelievable. I thought their jobs are to make the patient comfortable. Not be so controlling because of her title and not caring about the patients comfort.