Dr Hoyman Hong, MD

I have been seeing Dr Hong for around a decade, off and on. I have no higher praise for a physician than I do for Dr. Hong. I have a unique and complex medical situation, yet Dr. Hong has always met me where I am at. He never downplayed my condition and has always been willing to work with me to find solutions or options to be more functional. Dr Hong has performed many procedures on me and managed my pain for over a decade with injections, referrals and pain management. He is gentle, kind, compassionate, caring, and competent. He is open-minded, informed, and concerned with his patient's experience. He's committed to helping you figure out your root cause so he's treating you correctly. I have no higher praise and that's saying something because I have been through the medical system for decades and let me tell you, he is not your typical practitioner. I trust him implicitly to make decisions based on what's best for me, and he's never violated that trust.

Not interested in your recovery and long term outcome. Only interest is in getting paid for that one visit. When I met with him he didn't ask about my previous medical records or seeing mri, xray reports. He no longer prescribes pain medication drugs. If you have a chronic illness, he is not your doctor.

fantastic diagnostician, bedside manner, great hands!!! after 7 years of agony he got me out of pain in 6 weeks and off narcotics in 2 months!!

My issues with discomfort and increasing pain from sciatica and confirmed by an X-ray showing spondylolisthesis in my lumbar 4-5 led me to schedule an appointment with Dr. Hoyman Hong at St. Francis Memorial Hospital. Due to a fairly long waiting list for an appointment (due to his excellent reputation as a physiatrist), I scheduled in advance through his office a likely needed MRI after the Monday appointment in order to speed the process for treatment. I had a thorough and productive physical and verbal exam from Dr. Hong which delineated the general lumbar situation as indicated from the prior X-ray, but further required an MRI (as expected) in order to clearly see the specific problem. I left his office, got the MRI locally in San Francisco, and returned the disk to Dr. Hong's office and handed it to him late in the day. He said he would take a look at it soon. As I was pulling in the garage at home, I got a call from him directly and he told me I had a cyst pressing on the… nerves in the spinal canal that should be treated quickly. Untreated it could have quite serious consequences soon. Within a half hour his office arranged patient rescheduling in order to do the minimally invasive procedure in three days on Thursday. The procedure under conscious sedation and with a fluoroscope for real time imaging took an hour to aspirate/dismember the cyst in the facet joint and inject an epidural steroid injection to reduce inflammation and pain. For three days afterwards there was considerable pain due to Dr. Hong's necessary strenuous efforts to eliminate the cyst which led to jostling the region and the impinging nerves. I took pain medication for that period, but within a few days the pain was gone - some resulting from the procedure, but more importantly the pain that had been an issue for months from spinal stenosis. Now and for the past six weeks I have had no pain or sciatica. It is a wonderful relief. While perhaps not a permanent solution since back problems (and sometimes cysts) have a tendency to recur, it is a blessing. I am so glad to have been in the good hands of Dr. Hong and his extremely quick response to what can be a quite serious problem if untreated in time. Office waits are compensated by the time he will devote to you as a patient. He is very personable, listens well, explains things properly, is very knowledgeable and capable, and takes a real interest in and spends appreciable time with his patients. I recommend him highly.

Everything about the appointment was EXCELLENT. The only reason I did not rate the Follow Up line is because it has only been several hours since our visit. I am certain either he or the office staff will Follow Up. Everyone was very professional and very thorough. Thank you!

Dr. didn't follow up on any of the things he said he would. Useless.

I have had to call their office about 4 times over the past week to remind them to set up my back MRI appointment, my followup review and my wait in the office was almost 1 hour. Dr. Hong is great, but his staff appear to not care about you at all. This is my BACK we're talking about, not my pinky.