Dr. Dana Preis Ascherman, MD

Dr. Ascherman and his team were fine. I am very distraught by their billing policies. I came into their office for a check-up on my joint pain due to an inflammatory condition, but I am in grad school, and needed to make sure that I would be billed for the in-network amount ($20 copay), otherwise, I couldn't afford the check-up. They assured me of that so I went. The appointment was fine. I have a somewhat rare condition so medical students were learning from my case. He came in for 10 minutes at the end to talk to me-- no blood work or procedures were performed. Now, I'm charged $560 because I was charged for a hospital visit even though the visit was outpatient. I really can't afford this and they need to adequately warn their patients next time

My father sees Dr. Ascherman in the Miami VAMC. He is a caring, committed, knowledgeable physician. He spends time explaining all treatment options, seriously considers alternatives, and inspires great confidence.

Dr. Ascherman treated me for Fibromyalgia and chronic tendonitis after I had been through a couple of doctors that were unable to treat me effectively. At first I thought he was great. He also treated my mother and she liked him a lot too. He was kind, non-judgmental and I felt he really cared about me as a patient and believed me when I described my symptoms. I was so grateful when he prescribed me a few medications that really helped. Finally I had some relief, something I thought I would never find. After many months, the medication began to become less effective which was seriously affecting my performance at work. When I told him that they were not helping very much anymore he sent me to what he called a pain clinic that turned out to be a holistic doctor (not a clinic) who suggested I take some vitamins and unless I wanted to try acupuncture he did not think he could further help me. Incidentally I had told Dr. Ascherman the first day I met him that I had been to this guy… a year ago and he was of no help. I had forgotten his name when Ascherman sent me there again. I think Ascherman added a muscle relaxer that practically knocked me out which is no good while you are working. Of course I still had the problem of feeling ill all the time and when I called Ascherman again crying because I was having to take so much time off of work because I was so sick, he had me come in so he could tell me he wasn't willing to change anything. So time passed, my symptoms only worsening, and again a few months later, I called Ascherman in an even higher state of desperation, fearing I would lose my job from all the sick days I was having to take, and he tells me he will authorize me to take some time off of work to go to a pain clinic which he thinks will last a few weeks. I hate to risk losing the best job I ever had but with no other option I write to my bosses that I am going to have to do this pain clinic and Ascherman sends his letter as well. My family and I are looking forward to hopefully finding some help - and lo and behold this pain clinic turns out to be the same holistic doctor he sent me to before. Yeah, speechless.So I lose my job (with a nice severance thank god) because they can't manage without someone in my position for very long. Ascherman is not what I would call sympathetic suggesting that even without the days off, who knows why they really fired me, in other words his lack of help had nothing to do with my new situation. Now that I'm home and unemployed my need to find pain relief is less desperate and things go along as they are. Then one day as I do every month, I call in to refill my medications, and when I pick them up, I see that the dosage on one of them has been changed thereby changing the quantity of tablets I had for the month, essentially causing me to be short. I call Dr. Ascherman and leave a detailed message with his nurses, as I am supposed to do when I need to speak to him, saying that Ive been taking this drug for a long time one way and I'm confused why he changed things, and I'm not sure how I'm actually supposed to take it. If it was an error he will have to correct it with the pharmacy as well.I ask if someone would please let me know what to do. Until I know, I will have to take a lesser dose of this medication which I rely on to function. I don't hear back by the end of the evening. I call again the next day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Again I hear nothing which is unusual for this office. The third day I leave a more urgent message and I state that I have left many messages before and would really appreciate a call back from anyone at least to let me know they got my messages. He does finally return my call that night pretty late in the evening, but I miss the call and he leaves no answer to my question much to my dismay. I call him back the next day and leave another message saying I'm returning his call and what it is regarding. I hear nothing. Normally these nurses are very nice and helpful, and they call back on the day I leave my message which is why I was feeling odd about the whole thing. I know it sounds weird but I was starting to feel like I had done something wrong or, well I had no idea why they were keeping silent on their end for a whole week. It is the fifth (?) day now and I have had enough. I worked for the same medical outfit, in a different office and I would never have ignored a patient if they were confused about a medication, especially if they called me several times stating they didn't understand why no one was returning their calls. To me that is just inexcusable. So I call the front desk instead of the nurses line this time, apologize for bothering them with this and explaining my predicament, and I ask them to please pass the phone to a live nurse. When one of the normally nice nurses finally picks up the phone, I can hear chatter in the background and I can tell it is about me calling. I start to tell her why I'm calling which she obviously already knows I am told impatiently. I'm pretty upset that I haven't heard back from anyone especially for something as serious as confusion over dosage of a medication that I received days ago. The nurse tells me that they have been trying to to get an answer from the doctor and I tell them that they should have called me back at least once to tell me that they were working on it. She says something about how its the doctors responsibility to tell me how to take my medicine and I tell her that obviously he hasn't done so which is why I called the very people who are there to help me with a situation such as this. I tell her that I feel it was totally unprofessional and poor patient care for them to leave me in the dark for a week about a medication concern. I was certainly raising my voice at this point because I'm irritated