Dr. Diane M Cicatello, MD

Really a zero star review. My daughter had an amazing pediatric neurologist, but he relocated to NYC. We switched to Dr. Cicatello out of necessity. She is the worst, most unprofessional, and unpleasant doctor I have ever encountered. My child has been a patient for almost 8 years and she still doesn't know our names and needs a recap of the most basic information about our daughter's history. She berates us for not faxing over IEP's and behavioral plans in advance (we do and her office loses them). We now bring the fax confirmations. Our daughter had to leave school early for her appointment. Dr. Cicatello ran 90 minutes late (no acknowledgement or apology). Her office "never received" the most recent faxes. We brought copies. She reads everything during the appointment, so we were waiting 90 minutes and then waiting while she scanned 20 pages of information, which she said didn't have enough detail for her to determine whether or not a medication change was warranted. She talks… about things in the behavioral report that I don't really want my 11 year old to hear, in a way that causes her anxiety and distress. I've asked Dr. Cicatello not to do this in the past, but she doesn't remember because she doesn't really know her patients. If you disagree with her at all, she immediately launches into how she has been in practice for 30 years. She asked what we even wanted out of the appointment and I explained that she had insisted at our previous appointment that we schedule this one otherwise she couldn't continue to write my daughter's prescription. That we hadn't requested an appointment to begin with and it's pretty appalling that she's acting as though we're inconveniencing her. Also, it is unnecessarily difficult to just get an updated OT script faxed to the school. You basically have to fax the office a dozen times. I don't know why she's still in practice. I think she just likes talking down to people and reminding everyone that she's a doctor.

We made the appointment with this doctor because we wanted answers. And hoped that through those answers we would be able to find a path to treatment. We were very disappointed. It took over a year and a half to see this doctor. When we arrived (early, as was requested by the office) we were told that she was running late. Very late. The receptionist suggested that we come back "in an hour or so". My already anxious child was an absolute rockstar and doing his best to hold it together. And when we were finally seen... at 3:30 for our 1:00 appointment, the doctor almost immediately left to deal with another patient. She returned, proclaimed that my child was anxious, and handed me a stapled google search that included the names of other doctors and websites. If you're looking for professionalism or efficiency or effectiveness, do yourself a favor and skip your appointment with Dr. Cicatello. If you're ready for a long wait to receive paperwork, a long wait to book an… appointment and then an insanely long wait in the waiting room - to leave without the help you came for - then this doc is for you. I've never written a negative review of a doctor - but parents should be warned about this process. (And the bills just keep coming, despite insurance!)

Incredibly long waiting period to see her. She has been seeing my son for well over 6 years and runs 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours late every single visit. It is completely unprofessional. Every review I read says 5 stars but 90% of them rant about the ridiculous wait time. To make a 7 year old with ADHD sit in a waiting room for nearly 2 hours is not right.

As much as I love Dr. Cicatello I hate waiting over an hour every time I come on time for my appointment with my child with ADHD. The scheduled appointments should give room so that parents and children aren't waiting as long. If I came an hour after my appointment time I would have to cancel my appointment and would be charged. Why does the doctor get away with this? Please fix this problem

It took me some time to write this review. My son has seen several professionals now and I just can’t help but look back at his appointment with Dr. Cicatello and wonder why I allowed her to speak so condescendingly to me. She had made her assumptions about my son and my family before we walked in the room. She asked a ton of questions which may seem as though it’s thorough but half the time she didn’t believe my answers and questioned me several times rolling her eyes at various points. She only actually interacted and tried to engage with my son in the last 5 minutes of our appointment. I don’t find her assessment to be credible as other professionals have given us a widely different evaluation. I genuinely think she forms her diagnosis before you walk through the door which is a waste of time. She has no respect for the families. No parent deserves to be talked to as though they are a child. My son deserved better.

I do like the doctor and the information she has provided us. However, like everyone else we have waited a long time to be seen. Our last visit we wait over 2 hours to be seen, we drive over an hour for these visits with a toddler. It becomes very frustrating. As for the front desk staff, I have never found them to be friendly or have any sense of compassion. These people have no idea what parents are going through when they bring children here and the last thing I want to worry about is the attitude they give. We have decided to go for a second opinion elsewhere and hope the experience is better. For now we’re going to continue going here but this is the last chance

This doctor has no regard for your time. She had us waiting over an hour with a 5 year old to be evaluated. I don't know how you would ever get a clear indication of who a child is when you finally see them and they are bouncing off the walls from being locked in a 5x5 space. She finally comes talks to us for 20 minutes, then we get interrupted; five more minutes go by she gets pulled out of the room and leaves us for another 20 minutes. We decided to leave because our child deserves better and the evaluation would never be accurate. Stay away from this doctor you can do better. Her evaluation is just reading you back notes from what you have received from other places. Do your job better Diane treat people like humans not cattle. You're not better than anyone else and your time is not more valuable than others. Retire you're out of touch.

The worst transgression from this office is that I received unsolicited legal advice not to pursue a lead poisoning case for my son because his level 16 lead level was not really anything and we would be wasting our time. My son was severely damaged by the lead poisoning he sustained and in fact received a 6 figure sum. I don’t know what kind of doctor doesn’t recognize lead poisoning as serious. If we listened to her my son would have lost out on a lot of help for his adulthood. Again, she forcefully offered this bad advice without us even asking for legal advice. Besides this, I found her and her staff to be rude. From routing phone calls to asking for paperwork, to the actual visit, I was always getting a voice full of attitude and pushback. The dr herself cursed during one of our appointments. Some could call that casual, I call it lazy and unprofessional. I wouldn’t have gone more than once if not for a lack of this type of dr in our area.

Horrible vibe from her. I was questioning a few things she was prescribing to Which she was extremely short and condescending. She spoke to me like I was a little kid. Absolutely disgusting.

Came to see her for my son, took hour one each visit and took her time with our son to learn about him. A great experience.