Dr. Loren Martin Fishman, MD

After Dr Fishman saw my MRI, he noted that I had a large, herniated disc in L2 and L3. His recommendation was a few weeks of yoga and physical therapy. I decided to get a 2nd opinion from a conventional doctor, and after seeing the MRI and X-rays, he told me that if I didn’t get surgery as soon as possible, I was at the risk of permanent nerve damage. This second opinion was confirmed by other reliable medical sources. Dr. Fishman is an impressive, charismatic East/West MD, and if I had a less serious condition I would have stuck with him. However, I’m lucky I hobbled away. A conventional surgeon gave me a laminectomy and the extreme weakness in my legs is completely gone just two days after surgery. I no longer need a walker.

dr lorens staff is rude, unkind and lack empathy. I see this being a common complaint and i wish he did something about it.

It took 4 years to find out why i didn't heal from neck surgery. i got CRPS. And he was the only doctor who even knew what that was. He is a brilliant genius of a man, a diagnostitian who sees the whole body and truly seeks a path to full healing.

Dr. Fishman successfully fixed my rotator cuff without my having to have surgery. He also repaired an arthritic thumb of mine with one injection. He oversaw a broken kneecap of mine, referring me to a top knee doctor. He always has time, and has a wonderful manner and sense of humor. I can't recommend him highly enough. Top, top.

I discovered Dr. Fishman upon reading a NYT article about his work. This was after 1 1/2 years of debilitating pain in the hip and leg and suggestions from doctors that I have a hip replacement. Dr. Fishman was the only doctor familiar enough with piriformis syndrome to diagnose and treat my issue correctly; I am pain free, 66, and attend rigorous dance classes several hours a week. I am an academic and value data. He is the only doctor who regularly, when I have come in with a physical complaint, has tended to verify his diagnosis with EMG investigation. Indeed, Dr. Fishman is known for pioneering work in electrodiagnostics. I am grateful for this gentle human being, and for the visionary work he has devoted himself to in exploring yoga and its healing potential in the treatment of serious ailments like multiple sclerosis, arthritis, osteoporosis and more. Unlike many medical writers of books for the public, the books are succinct and beautifully written (no filler and… repetition) - I say this as an editor, writer, and professor of English. And then, there are over 100 peer reviewed articles on the intricacy of bone metabolism and specific yoga poses. If only some early morning television channel would feature his system of poses for osteoporosis (research has determined that the system has reversed the disease for many), we might end this scourge for millions! Dr. Fishman was a gift to me. He is a gift to his patients and to the planet.

This man should retire. I went to see him and the front desk girl was juggling so many things she couldn't do anything and was super slow. The doctor had me in his office and made personal calls I didn't need to hear. He did a test and then didn't explain the results and said pt and injections would help. I already have been doing pt and an injection in the past didn't work. He sent me for an MRI and told me to come back in two weeks. He never reviewed the test results. When I went back two weeks later he had not looked at my MRI report that was on his desk or it's disk and was making personal calls again. He was frazzled and acted like he had Alzheimer's, asked me what my condition was that I was seeing him for and if he performed a test on me because the issue may be my piriformis. I told him he told me two weeks ago it wasn't piriformis and he did a test and asked my MRI results. He read the MRI paper and didn't look at the disk and said I should go to pt and wrote a letter for pt… and I said you have me a pt letter last week. I then asked for a cop ly of the test results he did and had to wait 30 mins for it to print out after already being there an hour while he made personal calls infront of me. Completely disorganized and unprofessional practice, he has a strange personality and obviously doesn't take notes. Go elsewhere.

BEWARE!: While Dr. Fishman is an excellent doctor, his office's billing procedures are HIGHLY UNORTHODOX. I paid what I thought was the entire bill at the time of my appointment, as they insisted I do. Instead of letting me submit the bill to Oxford, they insisted on submitting it themselves â?? and they sent Oxford a larger bill than they had given me and asked Oxford to pay them, rather than me. When they received the Oxford reimbursement, they held onto it for more than three months. Then, when they finally paid me (after my repeated requests), they kept more than $1,000 of the Oxford payment for themselves, saying it was the balance I owed on the bill they had sent to Oxford. Unbelievable!

I liked Dr. Fishman a lot as a person which fooled me into believing everything he said. Unfortunately, he did not help me at all and only sent me to PT in his own clinic which was not very customized to my own condition. Whats worse is that his office staff is rude and unhelpful. They charged me for services I did not receive and also charged my insurance company, so they were in effect paid twice. It took a year for me to get my money back after persistent weekly phone calls where they gave me a hard time about it, puting the onus on me to provide documentation and paperwork that they themselves had written up. It was a nightmare to be dealing with that on top of the huge amounts of physical pain I am also in.

Dr Fishman is kind and courteous but I was given and sent for unsuccessful treatments which other doctors confirmed were not necessary. I found one of the receptionists (West side office) extremely moody and unhelpful, everything was a huge effort, especially when contacting her by phone. Also, luckily I caught errors on my invoice: I challenged a large bill for services they said were not covered by my insurance which, in fact, had been taken care of and for tests/treatments I never had. I never heard back so assume I was right!

Very approachable, charming, but tries to prescribe physical therapy even before diagnosis is in hand. Surprise: he runs two PT facilities in NYC.