Dr. Terry M Schaack, MD

I've been a patient of Dr. Schaack since he took over the practice of William Webber Smith on his retirement long ago. He is a talented, effective and highly disciplined physician in the classic sense. Not only has care been excellent but his recommendations for other specialists (who were often not taking "new" patients) was extremely helpful. A couple of decades I moved 3 hours away but still want Dr. Schaack as my primary physician.

I posted a YELP review but noticed Dr. Schaack is protected form it being posted. Who is he paying???

Chatty yet without any sincerity. Strings along the visits without end in sight. Very impressed with himself!

If mis-diagnosing is better than not diagnosing, then Dr. Schaak will never disappoint you. If not coordinating care is better than having a 2 tier approach of attention to his patients, with Medicare and those on his concierge list, again, you'll never question the attention he gives your family. To say that our family wasted too many years under his care is an understatement.

I switched to Dr. Schaack about 10 years ago. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. Just after starting to see him I experenced a serious flare while on a drug I had done well with for a long time. He switched me over to one of the biologicals and I have done well ever since. He stays on top of the latest research in the field.

I found Dr. Schaack to be a rather good doctor. He helped me quite a bit. However, there are some things to watch out for.You never know how much your bill is going to be. My bills ranged from an initial 500.00 consultation, to 150.00, to 250.00, to 375.00. When I called on the 375.00, the receptionist told me that he had billed it at a higher level of care. Yet, as far as I could tell, it was the same 15-20 minute consultation we always had.The staff in the office is useless except for Starr. It's impossible to get a message to the doctor and get a call back.Then came the biggest shock of all: After I had been seeing the doctor for a year, he informed me that if I didn't get health insurance, he would no longer see me as a patient. He had mentioned getting insurance on the previous visit, but did not indicate that his continued care was predicated on that.I came to him as a self pay patient because we had figured out it was cheaper to pay doctors and scripts out of pocket than… to carry health insurance.He had no interest in the fact that we couldn't afford health insurance, and that we CERTAINLY couldn't afford health insurance AND him. He did, too, understand the fact that any insurance that he accepted was unavailable to us. At the time, we had the option of Kaiser or Health Net, neither of which he accepted.BTW, it wasn't a matter of not paying the doctor, either. I payed him in a timely manner always, even though the bills ranged wildly. Some were 150, some 250 and the last was 375.00. When I called to find out why, the receptionist told me that he had billed it at a higher level of care. In spite of the fact that we did nothing except sit and chat for 15-20 minutes- exactly as we always did.Oh, and there is an initial consultation fee. Mine was 500.00. I didn't mind that, though. We sat and he talked to me for two hours, a half an hour of which was a physical exam. He obviously knows his stuff medically.Unfortunately, in the end I felt utterly abandoned and I felt it was cruel because I had been doing so much better physically with him.The happy ending to the story is that I found an even better doctor, although he is more expensive. However, he assured me of two things- my bill will never go up and he wont' drop me because of lack of insurance!!!