Richard S Tao's Online Review Report Card

Dr. Tao evaluated my wife at the Barnes Jewish West County ED in January of 2019. She was in and out in 40 minutes after complaining about leg pains that her oncologist thought could be a blood clot. Dr. Tao ruled out a blood clot and sent her home, telling he that her pain was probably muscular-skeltal. Her excruciating pain continued for a week before we then went to the ED at Mercy Hospital. There the triage nurse correctly suspected a hip fracture that was confirmed and treated with emergency hip replacement the next day. I did inform Barnes West County of the missed diagnosis. They did their own investigation and concluded that appropriate care was given because Dr. Tao claimed to have moved my wife's hip in his examination. There is no way he could have touched her hip without her expressing excruciating pain. I can excuse a missed diagnosis. I can't excuse misstating what occurred in the examination. That is lying. So of course no apology was given by Dr. Tao.

Dr. Tao examined my wife at the ED at Barnes Jewish West County, ruling out a blood clot when she complained of leg pain. He sent her home after a brief assessment. A week later her pain was still so excruciating we took her to the ED at Mercy where the triage nurse correctly assessed the situation, suspecting a spinal fracture, which was diagnosed and treated the next day with emergency hip replacement. ...

I have a horrible skin condition that is unbearable due to copious amounts of glass in my skin. I went to Barnes West's ER in desparation seeking help and had the unfortunate pleasure of having this man as my attending physician. I told them i was on medications including adderol for ADD and college. He wouldnt listen to me regarding my symptoms and actually walked out of the room in the middle of me trying to explain it to him. 3 hours later he returned and stated in a very accusatory tone that he found amphetamines in my tests. I responded by telling him I informed them of that at intake. The nurse confirmed this. He then discharged me with a diagnosis of skin picking disorder and told me to buy benedryl. I left the experience feeling like I just visited a parole officer rather than a doctor who took an oath to first do no harm and to help. I thought having glass coming out of my tear ducts was bad enough, but this man made a bad situation all the more painful and humiliating.

I brought my 5 yr. old son in to the Red Bud hospital, ER, for a very deep cut on his hand and not only did Dr. Tao take wonderful care of him, he was also joking and being silly with my son to make him feel more comfortable. I think he is an excellent physician and while I would rather not need to return to the ER anytime soon. I would be happy to see Dr. Tao there again!

Recently took my husband to the Barnes Jewish West County ER and we were given Dr. Tao. We were glad to see no one in the waiting room and got into a patient room pretty quickly but then ended up waiting in there for a total of 90 minutes, receiving a total of less than 10 minutes of service from anyone, probably 3 min. total from the doctor. Dr. Tao *clearly* did not care at all about giving good service. He didn't even ask my husband if the lesion on his face hurt. He didn't explain our options, didn't tell us we would be there a while, didn't look either of us in the eye, didn't ask us if we had any questions, and showed no compassion whatsoever. I will never go back to this ER again.