We loved seeing Dr. Aikels. We always thought she was a great Doctor. I would even use the second tier of my insurance and pay a little more because I liked this office and her so much!
Then I experienced three situations that have led to me review this office negatively and also find a new pediatrician for my three kids.
The first situation was when were were scheduled to see another doctor instead of Dr. Aikels. We were not informed of this when we made our appointment and thus still elected to see the doctor as we need to address a couple medical issues quickly. This doctor completely tore me down as a parent and even made me feel like I was doing everything wrong because I let my child drink juices. (Even though i explained that typically it is 100% orange juice) She would ask me a question and with every answer she would make me feel like an inadequate parent. It was a very poor experience. I did not choose to leave the practice but just be sure to ask who i was seeing moving forward and make sure I did not get scheduled with her.
The second situation had to deal with them not refilling a prescription that my child has been taking for over 3 years. He had run out of his fast acting emergency inhaler and I went to go refill it and there were no refills. I called at about 4 pm on a Friday (YES I KNOW) and the nurse refused to send a refill. She said they could not refill it without seeing him. I ended up having to take him to an urgent care facility and have the physician there prescribe one so that we could have it over the weekend in case he needed it! EVEN though they prescribed it before! I still didn't leave the practice (and honestly probably only because of convenience.
THEN the following happened and I have decided to find a doctor that truly cares about his patients and doesn't just see everyone as a $$$ sign: We went to KidFixers a few weeks ago to have my son seen for his asthma. It was so severe we needed answers. We were scheduled with Dr. Lepore. Initially Dr. Lepore seemed concerned but quickly became irritated during the appointment when my son didn't understand exactly how Dr. Lepore wanted him to take breaths. I shook it off because I know my kid is a goofball and was hoping he would just get it right. However, I felt more and more irritation every time I spoke to him. We ended up leaving with a referral to an allergist and to quest for blood work. I immediately scheduled at Quest the next day! 3 days later I called to see if I needed to pick up his results and take them to the allergist or if Kidfixers would send them over for me. They told me that they would send them (they never did) and that the allergist would review them with me at my appointment that Wednesday! (My review on Tottori Allergy and Asthma Associates can also be found on yelp as it was by far the worst 3 hour+ experience i have EVER had and didn't even end in the review of the blood work or food allergies... they told me that blood results are always inaccurate and that I needed to do the scratch test (that would cost me $98) and I did it. My son was allergic to everything however, they didn't test the foods. Just environmental allergies. They said I didn't need to worry about the food allergies and told me that I could continue feeding my kid anything and didn't need to worry about the foods he was allergic to...) I thought that was strange so I called Kidfixers back after the allergist appointment to try and figure this out. She seemed shocked at the situation. And said she would have the doctor call me.
SIDE NOTE: The doctor did call me once to review the blood results over the phone... since I was on a plane, I was unable to answer AND when I called back was unsuccessful at getting a hold of him.
I called again after the allergist appointment and the person I spoke with told me that the doctor said there were too many things to review over the phone (even though he had called me once already to go over them) and that I needed to come in and go over the lab results. I explained to her that I did not want to come in if I was going to have to pay AGAIN! (At this point I have already paid $215 between the appointments and still didn't have answers) She told me that she would make a note that it was just going to be a lab review and that I would not have to pay a dime. THUS my frustration when the not-so-kind receptionist informed me that I needed to pay my $40 co pay. I explained the situation and what I had been told and she basically said "oh well, it's our contract". She even went and asked the person who scheduled my appointment what was going on and came back with no answer. Just a "sorry" and "this is our contract". I also asked if the doctor knew what was going on and she said "yes, he was standing right here."
The fact that the doctor knew my frustrations and didn't care to address them really showed me that he is all about the $$$. He doesn't care about my son at all. Neither does the staff.