Intermed Pa's Online Review Report Card

I'm a bit surprised at all the negative reviews, as my experiences here for the last two years have been almost entirely positive. Yes, now that the pandemic has been winding down there are definitely long wait times to reach someone, but if you call anywhere else, it is almost impossible to become a new patient anywhere (my boyfriend has been trying), so Intermed is not the only one who has been swamped in the recent months. Even with a controlled substance, I find the prescription process simple (especially with their new app) and relatively seamless.My only negative thing, which sounds silly, is that the waiting music is absolutely INFURIATING! It is always the same song, which honestly wouldn't be so terrible, but literally every 2 seconds that the music plays, there are intervals of a horrible scratching static sound. So you hear peaceful piano music for 2-3 seconds, and then the music cuts out completely to static, then another 2-3 seconds of music before the next one....it drives me absolutely ISANE, especially with the long wait times now, and I don't know who to talk to about this!! I wish I knew if anyone else experienced this!

Concerns weren't heard or addressed by all the staff I interacted with (doctor, nurse, front desk personnel)

Intermed is the worst doctors office I have ever had the displeasure of being a patient in. They don’t answer their phones, they won’t see you for ANYTHING without a covid swab first, and the doctors are incompetent. It’s very clear it’s all about money and not about patient care. Every single time in the last two years that I have called to make a sick visit (specifically today as I believe I have pneumonia) I have been told I have covid symptoms and must be tested before making an appointment. Mind you, I had a negative home test YESTERDAY, I caught whatever this is FOUR weeks ago from a child, who also has had negative tests. So here is how they operate: If you have any symptom of illness, since everything is a symptom of covid, you must have a test first. You must wait for test results to schedule an appointment, even though they know a rapid swab only takes an hour to come back. They could easily schedule the swab and appointment hours apart same day. No. Get your swab, wait for results. By the time anyone can pick up the phone to call you about your results, it’s the end of the day, they won’t see you, and you need to schedule an appointment for the following day. Do they realize people ~work~ for a living? They accept positive home test results for covid, but not negative ones. Their reasoning is “they need something electronically accessible.” So if it’s positive, it doesn’t need to be electronically accessible. But if it’s negative, you must pay for a test that they can see on the computer. That makes sense You cannot be seen when sick anymore. They gaslight the crap out of you, ignore symptoms of chronic illness, and don’t care to ever fix what’s going on. They misdiagnose ailments that I self diagnosed at home (doesn’t take a rocket scientist for certain things) and simply want to have confirmed so I could get the proper prescription / treatment. They told my partner that his neurological symptoms could be fixed by sleep and water. Unfortunately, sleep and water don’t fix numb, tingling limbs and chronic headaches. All they do is prescribe the wrong crap and ignore the root causes. They get something like 6.5 minutes per patient, and it is very obvious. So what are we paying for? Garbage care, that we have to routinely get, but can’t get without covid swabs, and prescriptions that mask symptoms rather than treating the root cause of disease and illness. And don’t even get me STARTED on the women’s health branch of Intermed. I was told word for word by Mary Lavoie that the labs I asked for were “Stupid, and I’ll make sure to write in the note that I think it’s stupid,” because it “wasn’t medically indicated” even though I had 7+ symptoms of the issue I wanted checked via lab work. So when waverly is it medically indicated? When it’s so severe it impairs my daily functioning? This is why people, especially women, don’t advocate for themselves. Because we are written off. By OTHER WOMEN no less, who I’m sure in their free time claim to want to help women and pretend to be feminists! She told me that “if you get a period, you don’t have a hormone imbalance.” That is actually false, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that. Anyone who has an ounce of knowledge about women’s reproductive health knows this. Picking up a book might be helpful. Periods are not indicative of proper hormone functioning whatsoever, you can literally have regular monthly bleeds and not even be ovulating, but that’s beside the point. She also asked me, during the same appointment while discussing hormone imbalances, “well do you still like your boyfriend?” I have NEVER experienced such wildly unprofessional behavior & dialogue during an appointment I am PAYING for. She also is one of the lovely doctors who will gaslight women and tell them that their negative side effects from BC couldn’t POSSIBLY be from the synthetic hormones and that they are localized and can’t effect the rest of your body. A quick google search to find IUD studies, or even a look at THE IUD PACKAGE INSERT, will prove that wrong. Maybe these doctors should stop and think- Hmm, if my patient didn’t have hair loss, headaches, pelvic pain, etc prior to the IUD, yet months after insertion has all of these and more, and the warning label for said IUD actually warns against all of these…. MAYBE that’s what it’s from! But what do I know. She dropped f bombs left and right among other profantifies the entire appointment, and every appointment in prior months/years. It’s not cute, it doesn’t help patients feel secure in her care, and it doesn’t foster a therapeutic relationship. We aren’t friends, we’re patients looking for qualified doctors to help us. It’s extremely unprofessional. Maybe these doctors seem great to people who don’t work in healthcare themselves and/or have no knowledge of health & wellness and therefore don’t advocate for themselves, but it doesn’t work for me. A good reminder- WE are paying for care. If I’m not getting quality care, I’m not paying for it. Fire your doctor if you don’t like them. We are paying their bills. I’m done accepting scientifically baseless care from incompetent “physicians” who don’t know the first thing about true health and wellness.

I'd give zero to negative rating at this point if I could. Administratively this office is terrible for the number of staff you will see in the office. On nearly every office visit there are have been a number of staff not actively helping patients or on a phone call. That in itself is not to say they weren't working but every time I call the office it is rare that I am on hold for less than 10 minutes an 9/10 times the first point of contact can't help me anyway (which is fine, at least I got a human to direct my call) Why are more of the staff not answering the phone to be the first point of contact.It'd be tolerable if that was the end of the issues. Refill requests and other non medical emergency type correspondences with the medical staff and insurance processing takes days and multiple follow up phone calls to have hint of action taken. When movement does happen (i.e. refill being sent to pharmacy) it is generally the end of the day (~5pm) which means a lot of pharmacies probably won't fill it that day before they close.Medically I have been disappointed as well. I started seeing doctor Lena in 2020 and felt a there was a general malaise to pointedly answering any direct medical or treatment related questions. I've had chronic sinus issues my entire life and finally sought to try and address them. Upon raising thisbissuebwith Dr. Lena I also mentioned I believe this was impacting my sleep. He latched on to this and insisted multiple times on having a sleep study done despite my requests for referrals to an ENT doctor. Sure, a sleep study (which was another disaster of an office) isn't a bad thing given I have sleep issues but this does absolutely zero do address my initial concern and possibly underlying issue of chronic sinus inflammation.My wife is a patient of Dr. Edwards and has been given questionable medical care at multiple visits. Her blood tests have had results on the higher end of the spectrum (outnof range for intermeds lab but apparently in range by a hematologist office's standards) and every time the office has taken multiple days to discuss the results. One of the latest times she was due for a blood test but was sick and on antibiotics, being proactive she asked the Intermed medical staff if she should not go for testing given the medication and an infection and they insisted it was fine. 3 days after the results were submitted to the patient portal a nurse called and said the results were concerning, namely liver function being very low and to not take any type of pain killers or alcohol as it could be a problem with no further clarification before ending the call. If the results were of that great a concern why did it take 3 days to inform the patient? The next day or two the office called back and said "disregard the previous phone call, we realized you were on antibiotics and treating an infection which likely skewed the results". Hmmm really? She had to have another blood test done shortly after at our out of pocket expense because insurance wouldn't cover two of the same tests being done that close together.

I have found every doctor I have seen at InterMed to be interested, knowledgeable and engaging. I am completely satisfied with the care I have received over the years.

Every single experience I have had at Intermed has been phenomena! All of the staff treat you with kindness and respect. I have never had such consistently great care. A special note that Dr Lavoie is an absolute treasure! Her bedside manner is so upbeat, comforting and understanding. The compassion she gives her patients is so above and beyond what we usually receive  We need more doctors like her!

Update:  I cut my arm open in a rusty nail.  I called my doctor at InterMed for a tetanus booster.  I was told there were no open appointments.  I reminded the person in the phone that tetanus is potentially fatal, and that I needed to see SOMEBODY there for a visit, even just a nurse visit.  She said that there were no open appointments for at least 3 days.  I could not believe that my doctors office would deny a patient for a simple shit that could prevent a fatal disease. (The chance of getting tetanus is 10%, but that's still too high for something preventable).  I cannot believe how negligent InterMed is. They clearly do not care about their patients, and should be investigated.  I did go to a local AFC for a booster, but I will not ever be calling InterMed again.

They don't answer the phone. It takes an hour to hear back. God forbid you're in the bathroom when they call back. Another hour. Unbelievable. Every. Single. Time.

Intermed has quickly lost respect. If you want quality care and the attention from a Dr, go somewhere else. Dr. Casey Little and FNP Megan Touhey are two that I would stay away from. Lack of attention specifically to symptoms and major lack of listening skills. They don’t care at all about ones health. Want a test done? Buy it yourself through a lab, unfortunately some Drs are more concerned about the insurance company rather than patient health.

Excellent, on time, wonderful doctors