Central Ohio Behavioral Medicine's Online Review Report Card

Great first impression! Dr. Zafirides is extremely knowledgeable and the person at the front desk was very helpful. I was able to get an appointment within a couple weeks of calling after my previous provider doesn’t accept my new health insurance. Highly recommend

I have been seeing Dr. Zaphrides for over 10 years and we have developed a tremendous report. In fact even though my insurance isn’t accepted, I have paid out of my pocket to stay with him. As to the rest of the practice, I can agree with others that things have changed since the move. I recently had a kidney transplant and one day was called back to the center for a treatment. In the chaos I forgot to cancel my appt. so there has been a$125-$150 no show no call free on my bill. Thing is that this fee costs more than if I’d actually had a full session of time with him. Surely not going to pay more because I didn’t go and would think there’d be less severe punishments. As I plan to tell them today, I’m not paying the charge whether they want to leave it on there or not. That is guaranteed! So 3.5 stars for the office with .5 more specific to Dr. Z. Not long ago I would have given 5 stars hands down!

They will not work with you on copayment even when they know you’re on ssdi

I called in to tell the nurse I was going to be late for an upcoming appointment, and the nurse convinced me to do a "phone session". This was not covered by my insurance. When I called back to ask the receptionist why it wasn't, she said that insurance companies "never cover those", after several attempts to get a hold of someone in charge, I was told that they would remove the charge, but they never did. I refuse to pay it out of principal, and now I am getting rude calls from an aggressive debt collector who just told me to "be responsible; pay your bills", and hung up on me. I went here for therapy, and this is what I get... STAY AWAY!

This is my experience trying to become a new patient. 4/28/17 - Called and asked about becoming a new patient with Dr. Peter Zafrirdes, and the guy who answered the phone was extremely rude in my conversation and corrected me in the pronunciation of Dr. Z's name. Sorry about that, my bad. Then he transferred me to the New Patient Line to leave a voicemail where I did as such. No returned call. 5/9/17 - left another VM on the new patient line. No returned call. 5/17/17 - Went to their website and sent an email stating that this was my third attempt at contacting them. 5/18/17 - Received a call from Darci that if I was "still interested" to contact them. Really....What do you think!!! I called Darci back immediately, upon which I was told that Dr. Z was not accepting new patients. I explained that my doctor had referred me to him. She explained of course, b/c Dr. Z is the best doctor and went on and on and him. I thought my doctor was the best myself and he was about to retire but I wasn't bragging. She recommended Dr. Julie Guthrie which I declined as she doesn't have good ratings. She explained that there were staffing issues....staff had left and the rest were having to pick up the slack. So I asked will Dr. Z be possibly take new patients later in the year? She said she didn't know. I asked if I could call back and check, yes. SOOO.... 10/23/17 - left VM on new patient line. Note the message states not to leave multiple messages as they are busy with patients or calling patients back. 10/30/17 - attempted to leave another VM but VM is FULL (see 10/23.....I believe if the office were actually calling patients back and deleting the VM messages, it wouldn't be full). Sent and email via their website contact page. 11/1/17 - @ 4:55pm....well, as of this writing, I have yet to receive a phone call. In my opinion, I truly believe the office staff are blocking and preventing patients from actually getting assistance from this facility. I believe the office staff are the gateway to the doctors and other medical professionals in this office and if they are picking and selecting who gets treated or not, that's sad and can become detrimental. This is very poor busy practices not returning phone calls back to potential clients. P.S. - Dr. Z may be a good doctor (I'm sure he is) but his office staff are not making him or the facility look very good. I wonder if Dr. Z, the other doctors, and other medical professionals really know what's going on in their office...that patients are trying to get in to seem them but the office staff are not allowing this to happen. Upon my research I found others have had issues with the office staff as well. Unless management take notice, this will continue to be a problem.

This is a wonderful practice and Dr. Bowers is a top notch doctor!

Professional staff, very helpful with insurance etc.

I had a decent experience my first time here. I didn't love it, but was planning to come back. For my second appointment, I arrived 2 minutes before the appointment was supposed to start (I typically would have arrive 15 minutes early for an appointment but I hit bad construction and was delayed). No one was at the desk when I got there. I stood waiting for at least 6 or 7 minutes before someone finally acknowledged me. I told her who I was and what time my appointment was supposed to start. She checked me in and asked me to wait. After 30 minutes of waiting, I just assumed the Dr. was running late. It happens. Finally the Dr. came out and called out a different patient. I immediately went up to the desk to find out if they skipped over my appointment and they said no one knew I was here. They said I could wait all afternoon if I still wanted to try to see her (I clearly don't have time for that and neither do most people). They tried to reschedule but I told them I'd rather think about it and let them know whether or not I want to come back. The icing on the cake - today I received a strongly worded letter from the Dr. saying that because I had neither canceled or kept my appointment, they should have charged me in full for it, but would let it slide this time. Obviously no one communicated to them that I was there and there was a clerical error. Honestly the letter was rude, and the final straw for me. I'll be looking for a new Dr.

This review includes my opinions of Richard [Rick] Curtis, LPCC I reached out to COBM for help with my long standing anxiety and depression. They returned my message quickly, and the receptionists have always been polite, helpful, and friendly. I was paired with Richard (Rick) Curtis for therapy, and my God he has been a life saver. I explained to him my history (childhood abuse, nightmares every night for as long as I could remember, depression, panic attacks, generalized and social anxiety), and how I was currently feeling ( always feeling like something is wrong, or something isn't right, nervous, not sleeping or eating well, various psychosomatic symptoms). By my third visit that man changed my life. I was (now unsurprisingly) diagnosed with PTSD and with that I was finally treated in ways that actually helped me, where other psychologists had failed. My nightmares are almost nonexistent now, I feel like I have more control over myself and my life, i'm not afraid, I'm more confident. My first visit we established how I was currently feeling and the troubles I was experiencing, as well as what my goals were and what I hoped to gain from meeting with him. He introduced himself, outlined his education and clinical history (trained in EMDR therapy by Shapiro herself! As well as 40+ years of work with PTSD), and the different approaches we could take with my treatment. I was able to give him a brief understanding of my past, and he didn't send me off without first giving me multiple coping tools and exercises to use to manage my mental health until our next visit. After that, I kept a journal of the nightmares I had for the next week, and when I brought them back he was able to find the common themes between them (i'm inadequate, I have no control), so we could dissect exactly how my mind works which leads me to act and react in the ways that I do. We also talked through specific traumatic experiences that I could remember and he helped me understand why and how they were so significant in the long term to my mental health. We have done a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy (so helpful), and also have done exercises to address my somatic symptoms- which was extremely stressful for me and he was very flexible and understanding when I expressed my desire to stop the exercise. We have not yet gotten into EMDR therapy, but I'm getting to a point now where I feel like I might not even need it. He has been absolutely vital, if not the total life force, behind the improvements I've made mentally and behaviorally. I no longer feel like nothing but a product of the things that have happened to me. He has also been extremely helpful in helping me find better ways to react to things that happen around me just for existing in my family, and ways in which I can try to figure out what I should do in a certain situation if I were to come across it on my own without previous coaching. He has helped me see the world for how it truly is, instead of how my past taught me it was and how my mind interpreted it in an attempt to protect myself. I was almost reluctant to post this review because I don't want him to have so many patients that it affects his availability! However, he really deserves credit for how great he is at what he does, and how much he has helped me.

I think I receive excellent care. I have been an established patient for over a year.