Dr. Brian Lynn Heffelfinger, MD

I have been seeing Dr. Heffelfinger for years, he is not only an excellent doctor, but a genuinely nice person! Always friendly and informative. I’m glad he’s younger than me so I can keep seeing him for a long time to come??JUDY Lieske

I was having severe eye pain and headaches, so I made the appointment and initially saw a different Dr. I was diagonosed with conjunctivitis and given eye drops and told to use them for a week and this should clear up the problem. Well that didn't happen, so I call the office and was given an appt with Dr. Heffelfinger. At the end of this appt I was told that I did not have conjunctivitis, butleritis given the reddness eye pain and headaches I was having, so he looked up the treatment in front of me from a book. THe treatment was very high doses of ibuprofen (2400mgs a day)! I was told to drink plenty of water and to stop the medication if I experienced stomach pain. Then I was told that if this didn't work we could try up to 3 different non- steroidal anti-inflammatory medications before treatment is considered a failure. If that was the case then I would most likely be refered to a specialist. A week passes and i am still having redness in the eye, so at this appointment out comes… the book again and this Dr. seem to be more uncomfortable because he has not fixed the problem. He does yet another full eye exam and switches my medication for a second time, he hardley stays in the room tho answer my questions, in fact he was already out the door of the exam room before I was able to stand up from the chair. He was still out of the room when he was saying that this should work. His nurse was unsure when he even needed to see me back, she had to go get him to find out. This does nto make onr feel comforable when your eyes are your concern. So another week passes and this medication did not work either still having small headaches and eye reness! so yet another appointment and no resolution to this problem! At this appointment he then tells me that I should go see the specialist, but int he meantime he will then give me a third non- steroidal anti-inflammatory, so that we can at least see if this would work. Then they gave me a card for the specialist so that I can make an appointment. He then proceeds to tell me he does not need to see me back unless the redness goes away and then he would "be happy" to do my follow up! That comment alone was VERY frustrating. After this that was the last time I was in the office.However a few days later I was told by someone that they thought my eyes were starting to turn slightly yellow. Because i had been taking all that medication I then started to worry that my liver was becoming angry at me for taking all this. I called the office and explained my situation to the woman on the phone and she replies " so did you need to be seen?". Really I thought to my self!! I then told her I would like to know what Dr.Heffelfinger would like me to do, if seeing me was what he wanted then yes , but I wanted him to know before scheduling . She then tells me that she would give him the message. 3 hours later I recieved a phone call from his nurse who asked me what was going on . I told her that I was told that my eyes started to look slightly yellow. She then said " so your seeing less redness?" Now I don't know what red and yellow have to do with one another but it must have been some kind of important question. I proceeded to tell her no I was just told that there was now another color in my eyes. She put me on hold and went to get Dr.Heffelfinger, he gets on the phone and again asked me what was going on, i told him that 2 people had looked at my eyes and said that they saw yellow in the corner of my eye as well as my entire eye. He said" well it couldn't be jaundice if it is it the corner of your eye". He then told me that to stop the medication," but the scleritis is just going to flare up again". I told him I understood this, but I was worried about continuing the medication if my eyes were turning yellow. He then made the commoent that I should go to a general practitioner and explain what was going on and that they would probably do some blood work to make sure my liver values were ok. He then said to me " I could order a liver panel for you, but I am an eye doctor why would I do that!" Well I thought to myself since you were the one who put me on all this medication you would want to follow through with this. That was the last conversation I had with him. a few days later his nurse called me to follow up with this whole mess. I told her I had not had an opportunity to make a Dr.appointment as I did not have my own personal gp. I told her i had tried making appointments, but no one was able to get in for at least a week.The nurse proceeded to say don't you think that it would be a smart thing to do getting your own gp. So now I have been called stupid, still have the eye problem and the Dr. that prescribed all this medication does not want to follow through with all of it, but is willing to see me if the problem resolved! I think that if you when to school for all of this you should see things to the end and not just pass things off if you can't fix them or because you "an eye doctor"

The wait was never under an hour. The staff is very rude, and the doctor seems to encourage this behavier. He was always in and out of the room leaving me waiting for long periods of time in the room. I asked the certain tests NOT be run because of insurance purposes and they were run anyway and I was charged for these exams. When I finally changed dr.'s getting my records transfered was a nightmare. They made me wait TWO weeks. The receptionist, on one occasion went as far as to hang up on me. Very unproffesional. DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS OFFICE!!!