[Nene873]

Hello

My psychiatrist never ever follows through with anything and the way is office is ran is ridiculous. It is also as if his staff were never trained to deal with patients who have mental illness, been exposed to emotional trauma, abuse or any anxiety or and disorders.

First, I cannot reach his office by phone - AT ALL. If I call his phone number, a message plays that says you may leave a message at the office number but the voicemail gets checked only once a week, otherwise, to communicate with the office go to the website and email the office from there. If it's an emergency, go to the hospital or call 911.

You can only communicate with the office via an email address. And you can never speak to the Dr when you need something in between appointments or have a question or need to follow up with him. Everytime I have tried, it has been a disaster.

For example, the first disaster was when my Dr forgot to send one of my regular monthly refills to the pharmacy after I went to my appt. I contacted the office who then refused to contact the Dr and verify that I actually went to my appt and that it was his mistake in forgetting to send it and they charged my credit card $50 for a med refill request. And even after that, the wrong med was refilled and it took an entire weekend to get the prescription straightened out. All going back and forth through email, through some person named Leah in the office, never allowing me to actually speak to my Dr.

I'll go back even further than that, in December, I was very depressed and needed to see my Dr or at least talk to him about med adjustments and requested to speak to him at least 3 times and either the office staff never gave him my messages or he decided to never respond. Plus, I had 2 appointments cancelled during that time and rescheduled because he had to travel and I ended up not seeing him at all until the middle of January. All of this happening during a very bad depressive cycle. He finally made minor med tweaks through his office staff, never speaking to me to see how I actually felt, during the first week of January. With his office staff telling me the entire month of December that because he was traveling it could be "several days" before he may respond to any questions or phone calls and if it was an emergency..blah..blah..blah..

This most recent incident occurred because at my last appt, my Dr. told me to lower my dose of Wellbutrin XL a little bit and see how I felt. He told me to contact him back if I noticed my mood slipping at all and he would make an adjustment from there. I did as instructed, noticed my mood change and emailed the office requesting to speak to my Dr and explained the situation. I received an email back stating that he was with patients until 6 but Leah said she would make sure he got my message today (that day) and email his response directly to me. I was shocked because I never get that type of response and happily replied, Thank you so much for your help!

At 6pm, I emailed the office back and my email started with, Hello Leah, I understand Dr. P is very busy today. I was just emailing for a status check on the situation regarding whether he would be able to get back to me today because it is 6pm and I don't know what his patient volume is like this evening. Thank you.

Then LEAH, emails me back - no, Jennifer, I do not think you do understand. he is with patients until 6pm. if you have an emergency please go to the emergency room or call 911. you're emails are excessive. if you are in need of his expertise then you must come in for an appointment, schedule a phone consultation or wait for his response which can take several days.
So, in other words, She is not going to give the Dr. my message or ask him to contact me back?!?!?! This happened on Feb. 5 AND EXCESSIVE? I only emailed her 2 times???!!?!?!?

I continued to experience issues with the lowered dose of Wellbutrin so this morning I emailed the Dr's direct, personal email. Almost 4 hours ago. He's not going to respond, either. I've emailed his direct email before and only gotten a response maybe once out of the many times I've tried it.

At this point, I don't know what to do. Go back to the old dose of Wellbutrin XL? And look for a new Dr? They've also charged my credit card on a Saturday, the day after I've gone to an appointment, an extra co-pay charge after I paid the co-pay at the appointment.

My husband is sick of me *****ing about the Dr. He wants me to find a Dr and get settled. This is the 2nd Dr I've had since September, when my old, and GOOD Dr moved away. The problem is, this Dr is really good, when your in the office. He's smart, has great credentials. He is a GOOD psychiatrist but then after your 45 minutes is up, everything else sucks.

I don't like not having a phone number to be able to speak to a real person and only being able to get through to the office via email. I don't like the fact that the office staff, LEAH, will never let me talk to the Dr or if I know if she's even giving my messages to my Dr.

I'm sorry for the novel. I'm so frustrated at this point.

Sounds like a jerk to me.

Im so sorry about your troubles.

[Nammu]

Have you discussed these problems directly with him during your face to face talk So? His staff might be the problem? Sounds like they are too busy being guard dogs instead of facilitating communications.

[bioChE]

Time to look for another doc. I know it sucks to set up care with yet another doctor, but sometimes it's the only way out of the madness. So to speak.

[Unrigged64072835]

This doesn't sound good at all. I would be finding another one.

[Wander]

That sounds really stressful. Have you ever explained to him how difficult this is for you and asked for better communication outside appointments? If the situation isn't going to change I would suggest you definitely find another doctor. Having contact between appointments is crucial for proper treatment. You can't be left hanging like that.

[CobolCapsule]

I agree with the others that you should confront your doctor with the problems. If that does not fix it, then it's time to find a new one.

[Fuzzybear]

I agree, I would look for a new shrink, this situation sounds sub optimal