An alarming mix of incompetence and belligerence, one of the worst experiences I've ever had with a physician's office:
Ater a 3-month wait for an appointment with Dr. Cornell, I arrived at the office to realize that my exam and refraction would be performed by a completely different doctor. Dr. Cornell did make a brief and last-minute appearance, where he quickly checked my eyes and rattled off some observations to a trainee taking notes. Worse, I was told AFTER the exam that I'd have to pay an extra $90 for the refraction.
I reluctantly paid the extra money and remained confident that the prescription for my glasses would be a huge improvement over what I'd grown used to with my older pair. (I mean, all these 5-star reviews can't be wrong...right?) Wrong. An inaccurate refraction resulted in an inaccurate and unusable prescription for computer glasses. I phoned the office and was told that they must have mistakenly filled the prescription for reading glasses, not… computer glasses. And so I made a trip back to the office, dropped off the glasses in exchange for a promise that they'd send them out to the lab on a "rush".
There was no rushing, not from the office, anyway. Instead of a call telling me that my glasses were ready for pick-up, I was instead treated to the news that my refraction was done incorrectly and that I would have to rush back again to the office to have the exam...again. To make matters suddenly more stressful, I was warned that I only had one more "chance to get this right", otherwise, the lab would charge me again for the lenses. This seemed obviously and profoundly unfair since I was not the one who made this mistake and used up that first chance. I was very honest and told the optician that my trust in the office had been squandered and that rather than make on more trip, I'd like a refund. I was promised a call back.
The call never came, and so I called them, this time speaking with Pearla, who told me that she'd investigate and call me back by the end of the day. True to office form, she did not. And to continue what had quickly become habit, I called again. This time, I was funneled to Tim, the office manager.
And that's when things turned inexplicably and inexcusably ugly. From the outset, he was strangely combative and aggressively challenged me for 20 minutes by insisting that I did not even HAVE a prescription for computer glasses. An unintelligible assertion since that's the entire reason I went in, I explained – for computer glasses. Instead, Tim chose to argue and lecture me about how wrong I was, despite me having the disputed description in my hand. Still, he he went on explaining that I was misinformed until, after nearly nearly half an hour, he finally realized that HE was the one who was wrong. All that time, he was looking at the wrong patient's chart. That, I explained, summed up the office's incompetence in a nutshell.
I was told to call back the following day and speak to Marina -- she makes all the decisions on the refunds. The buck stops with Marina.
Aside from arguing and incorrect prescriptions, it turns out the office is also awesomely good at one other thing: passing the buck. Because Marina, who promised to refund the money for the glasses, was not at all willing to refund the money for the faulty refraction. That bit of business was Tim's purview and so Tim had to do it. But according to Tim, only Marina had the ability to refund money spent on (incorrect) refractions.
Despite Marina's promise to refund me my glasses, I have yet to receive the reimbursement and my bank says none is pending. I am still also still out-of-pocket the extra $120 for the exam and refraction. And Dr. Cornell, despite all his 5-star reviews, has yet to call me back as was asked of Marina. I'd deduct a star for that as well, but this site leaves no option for zero stars. Still, zero stars is exactly what this office earned itself.
Read More