Shawn L. Palmer's Online Review Report Card

Worst wait time, in at 730am and still no doctor at 8am…..

I, family and friends have gone to Dr. PALMER for years. Not a whisper of rudeness or unethical practice. This is a great Doctor.

I've been a patient here for several years. Not the first eye Dr. in Folsom for me. I have never been treated rudely by any of the staff. I will say that like most Dr. offices you may have to wait 10-15 after your appt time to get in but if you're pressed for time make an appt at a time when you have less commitments. Sometimes my health insurance is billed, but it's when I have visits for pre-glaucoma issues or cataract surgery. If I just go in for glasses it always goes through my vision insurance. Never had any issues. I highly prefer the new optometrist over Dr. Baer. She just seems to take more of an interest than he did. Dr. Palmer has done two cataract surgeries on me and both went off without a problem. He is a veteran of the U.S. Naval Medical Corps where he served as a M.D. prior to specializing in eyes. I think he is a highly ethical and competent doctor. Virtually every Dr's office has staffing issues. If you have a problem with someone in the front office, deal with it like an adult, don't smear the Dr.'s name. TB

Dr. Palmer's staff failed to tell me before my first visit that they would dilate my eyes, then dismissed my concern about the lack of communication. The first pair of reading glasses he prescribed for me were unwearable (my new progressive lenses were fine). I returned for a prescription recheck and got new lenses, but the second pair of reading glasses were just as bad as the first. When I dropped in the office to ask questions about the process for getting cataract surgery, the staff were disorganized, rude, and communicated poorly. Dr. Palmer's notes about my first office visit were also inaccurate. He seems very nice, and my eye exam was thorough. But with the exception of the optical staff, the office is poorly run. I have reading glasses I cannot use, and I will not be going back. They did refund the cost of the reading glasses lenses, but then charged me $20 to return my frames.

Dr. Palmer performed cataract surgery 7 years ago, and I am very grateful 🙏 to him for a great job he did. I waited all this time to make sure that I was 100 % satisfied. Thank you, Dr. Palmer, for your excellent performance

Dr Palmer has been my doctor for the last 16 years and as each year passes it gets more and more difficult to make an appointment and the service at the front office has deteriorated. They have lost my appointment and even changed the times without letting me know nor do I get a reminder call. I continued to see Dr. Palmer also because my son is a Creighton University alumnus. Maybe loyalty isn’t important anymore.

Had a simple appointment, got my prescription, and went off to order a pair of glasses online. Dr. Palmer was professional and seems extremely knowledgeable

The unprofessionalism and questionable business practices from Dr. Palmer’s office continues. After Dr. Palmer’s office “reluctance” to accept my VSP at the time of my appointment and wanting to bill my health insurance for services not rendered…….guess what….they ended up taking my VSP co-payment BUT I just received a bill from my Blue Shield health insurance. So, why did I pay a co-payment to VSP and Dr. Palmer’s office didn’t bill VSP? - they billed Blue Shield instead and claimed they performed “medical” services. This office has serious billing credibility issues that continue to impact patients and is clearly taking advantage of the insurance billing process. ——————————— As a first time patient and new to the Folsom area, I found Dr Hula Minhas and her office staff to be both unethical and disrespectful. I went for a routine annual exam using VSP Insurance (which I’ve done for 25 years in Southern California); had minimal conversation which was 99% led by Dr. Minhas; asked no questions just listened to Dr. Minhas; only to find out when it came to pay my VSP co-pay that the office needed to bill my Health Insurance because it was a “medical evaluation”. When I questioned Donna (very rude and arrogant office staff member), I was told Dr Minhas discussed medical topics with me. What? This was nothing more, actually much less, than other optometrists I’ve visited over the years and they NEVER billed my health insurance company.....and they provided much more information about my eyes. I found this behavior to be very unethical, bait and switch type of mentality and way of doing business. I communicated this directly to Donna but she didn’t care to listen to my concerns about billing my health insurance vs VSP. It’s clear Dr. Minhas is trying to bill any way she can, as much as she can, for her own business and not in the patients interest. Imagine, Dr. Minhas decides what she wants to talk about and then she decides how much to bill you, regardless of what you said or asked about. Just crazy. Something is seriously wrong with this business practice. Lastly, this review is solely about Dr. Minhas and the front office staff and does not affect Dr. Palmer who I have never met. It was gratifying to see other reviews on google with the same takeaway as mine to know it’s Dr. Minhas unethical business practice that concern others as well. I’m off to notify both VSP and the CA State Board of Optometry to make them aware and hopefully investigate on behalf of others that Dr. Minhas is taking advantage of the billing process. Stay well.

I have been a patient of Dr. Palmer and Dr. Baer almost since the inception of doctor Palmer's office in Folsom. Recently I received an EOB "Explanation of Benefits" from my health insurance company that listed the description of service as OFF. VISIT. SPEC . I was confused about why my health insurance was billed when I have a vision plan "VSP" that I pay a premium on each month and would cover the routine exam I received. Due to Covid -19 like many others, I had to delay my yearly exam and went in for this appointment almost 18 months later. After waiting in the lobby for over an hour past my appointment time, I finally got into the exam room where Dr. Palmer did the exam, told me my eyes looked great and all in about 10-12 minutes it was done. I have always felt good about Dr. Palmer's legitimacy until a few weeks ago when I called his office to inquire about why my vision plan "VSP" was not billed for this service. His office staffer explained to me that it was because I had a special office visit that required this type of billing. I told her that I did not have any special services at this very typical eye exam, so she then went to look at my file and told me that I had a diagnosis that makes this billing necessary. The problem with this communication and the diagnosis she shared with me is that I had never heard of it before this phone call. No one has ever shared this with me and this most recent exam did not dictate any type of special treatments or counseling from Dr. Palmer. I want to know why I have never had this conversation with Dr. Palmer. I asked for a message to be given to him, that I would like to talk to him about this, but never received a call back. I called again a couple of weeks later and the receptionist went to check his desk and said my message was still there and she would let him know that I called again. Still no call back. I am so disappointed and now leery to continue as a patient. Reading some of the past reviews I am concerned about the billing in this office and the description of service being given to not just my health plan, but others too. This is wrong! I hope this review will finally give me some type of response from the doctor.

Office staff rude never on time alway's have to wait. You can do better.