Dr. Maria Araceli S Mendez, MD

I am grateful for Dr. Mendez and the way she treats me. I do not feel that she does not have a superior attitude. She listens to me, agrees some and disagrees some, but she has my best interest at heart and I think that she really cares about me.

She is the best psychiatrists I have ever seen. Listens very well

She has been very kind to me and uplifting.

I was truly blown away by my visit. I didn't have to wait like other patients, but what should have been a 30 minute visit was actually a 2 1/2 hour visit full of unnecessary questions. I'm already on a good cocktail of meds, so I was just going to get my refills. She spent the entire time asking unnecessary questions, such as, "Do you have any phobias?" I said no, and she spend like half an hour asking about specific things like "What about spiders? Heights? Snakes? The dark?" But never actually asked me about my mood. She took not 1, not 3, but 4 phone calls during my visit. I was tired of being there and really upset. I spent the last hour trying to keep my cool and not storm out like a *complete* crazy. Oh and she sent my refills to a pharmacy I don't use or even have ever used! When asked to switch it her office just never did! ZERO interpersonal skills and flat out uncooperative.

The most callous doctor I've ever met with. Based on her tone of voice she didn't seem to care about me or what I was saying most of the time (and the fact that at the initial visit there were multiple times I had to tell her things I'd said again because she didn't catch them confirmed this). At the initial visit there were multiple times when she interrupted my mother and me while we were talking (my mom was there to help with information on my psychiatric history), and she assumed that I hadn't had full mania before because I hadn't gone out and partied while manic, as well as filling in my sentence at one point that I didn't drive (when I was about to say that I was temporarily unsafe to drive because of my condition). At the second visit, when I was the only one in the room with her, she was more aggressive, asking "Like what?" presumptuously when I said I knew the medication could have side effects (which it felt like she was trying to assert the fact that she knew more than me… about the medication, as if that were questionable) and raising her voice at me when I asked to clarify whether she was prescribing me with 3mg a day or three tablets a day of the medication.

She sent word that she was to busy to talk to me.

Dr. Mendez would show up to appointments 2 to 3 hours late every time. I asked other people in the waiting room and that seemed to be a common occurrence for her. Its always a huge battle to get my medication refilled and to schedule a new appointment. It usually takes weeks just to hear back from her, only to find out that she can only fit me into her schedule for an appointment for a month out. Her office staff, which usually consists of one person, is always changing and therefore there is never any consistency. My insurance has been filed wrong multiple , if filed at all. I would not recommend anyone who is actually trying to get help to see Dr. Mendez, you will not find it with her.

I just want to say when I was her patient in 1994.She was very interested in my mental status.She help me through a very trying time in my life.

Dr. Mendez moonlights with private practice, and for every single one of my appointments has arrived at least 2-3 *hours* late--other patients in the waiting room confirm that this is their experience as well. Her only staff is a single, untrained student doing a clinical through the local career college, and these students are often unorganized, absent, and unfamiliar with payment procedures; two have improperly filed (my in-network) ins claims, resulting in hours of paperwork and phone calls on my end. Dr. M saw me initially for an anxiety complaint-- I was having frequent blackouts-- and prescribed a very strong psychotropic medication during the very first visit, without taking a full physical history or considering my current medications, even though I tried to offer this information to her. After multiple tests from specialists in the endocrine field, my other drs. found that I had untreated/undiagnosed hypoglycemia with pre-diabetes, anemia, and a thyroid condition. Had I taken… the meds Dr. M prescribed without getting a second opinion, I could have become even more ill, especially since the med was contraindicated not only for my actual, physical condition, but also contraindicated for the potential interactions with my other medications.