Marybeth Hughes's Online Review Report Card

I cannot say this doctor is not good. She's nice. But...My son had ears surgery about 2 years ago, and now he still has some ear problems from time to time. My wife usually gets him to the doctor. He recently started complaining about ear pain, and so we made an appointment. Doctor didn't advice much, saying that the pain should go away by itself soon. About 3-4 weeks later he still complained about this pain, and I emailed to the doctor. She said we should come back for her to see him again. This time I brought him to the doctor and she said the same, that she doesn't see problems other than his running nose, and maybe that's allergy. So she referred him to the allergy test. That was pretty much it. Then I received bill and found it's even higher than before. I compared and found that before she charged for service level 3, but this time it was service level 4. I called to the office to ask why the service level increased - that was follow-up visit, and there was no much information gotten. They first sent me to the billing, who told me that level 4 means more care and it's more expensive. That was obvious, but not helpful. Then I called them again and talked to the office manager, who told me that the doctor sets levels, and she cannot do anything about it.So what I can say - I feel like that was not fair, and I feel like it was a punishment for returning to her with the same question. I feel like it's waste of money ($224 for this kind of visit after insurance), and I don't know what to expect if we return to her with allergy results. She previously sent us to ENT, even though we only wanted hearing test, i.e. she didn't refer us directly to the test, but made ENT doing so (and that ENT visit costed a lot of money too). I understand that doctor supposed to know what she's doing, and I didn't complain about that ENT visit, and just paid my bills, but this time it was too obvious to me that we were overcharged for the service we received, and I'm going to find another doctor, who would either know how to stop my son's ear aches or at least would not charge us for some highest level of service.

Dr. Hughes has been our pediatrician for 21 years. All three of my children have grown up seeing Dr. Hughes and the other doctors in the group when Dr. Hughes is not available. They're all great. It's a small office, very personal and professional. I'm not surprised at their conscientious approach to wanting to see and examine a child before prescribing any medication - which seemed to be what irritated the first reviewer. Even with little notice, I have been able to get appointments for my children to be seen if their illness warranted an immediate visit rather than a scheduled appointment. (I wish my own doctor's practice was as accessible.) I have no reservations about recommending Dr. Hughes or any of the other doctors in this practice to other families.

I don't know what happened between the previous reviewer and Dr. Hughes to warrant a 1 Star review. I myself have been taking my two daughters ages 12 and 18 to see doctor Hughes for the past 10 years. She has always been very nice and caring towards my girls. She is very professional, we followed her over from her old location on Bascom Avenue to the new location on Los Gatos Almaden Road. The new location is great because it's on the ground floor now instead of the second floor like the previous office. I would recommend her to my friends and family.

She is a pediatrician. When I call for an appointment, they always "suggest" that my kid needs a physical. I take my kids to the doctor when they're sick. That's maybe once a year, but of course, they push the yearly complete physicals. We needed an appointment for school shots - complete physical recommended. We needed an appointment because my kid's head itched - complete physical recommended. We needed an rx for prescription-strength antiperspirant - complete physical recommended. No? Don't want the whole physical, come in for an office visit and talk about my kid's sweat problem. She's 14 and is embarrassed enough by the sweat showing through her clothes! She doesn't need to have a big discussion about it, but no. No office visit, no rx for antiperspirant. It's an ANTIPERSPIRANT for god's sake! Not depression meds, not pain meds, - I could understand an office visit for those kinds of things. Doesn't matter that she's been to the office twice in the last 6 months for her school shots, and also that we've been going to her for 14 years. Dr. Hughes seems interested in tacking on a complete physical or an office visit ($$) for everything. Feels like she's more interested in the money now than the kid.