The Polyclinic Northgate Plaza's Online Review Report Card

As a doctor referring patients to the Polyclinic: copies of evaluations, biopsy and imaging reports have not been provided to me. A call for health records directs me to a med records clearinghouse with "up to a 6-week wait" to receive my copies. Today with pt in office I called the clinic, was connected to the provider's back office line - o happy day! - only to have it ring, unanswered, for . . . 9 minutes and 55 seconds as I write this. Please send courtesy copies to referring doctors. Truly sorry you are understaffed; I understand.

This review isn't about Dr. Kennedy whom I have never seen. It is about the Polyclinic's indolent and uncaring front office. I had a referral to see Dr. Kennedy from another eye surgeon so I called the Polyclinic to make an appointment. The woman at the front desk said she needed the date of the referral which I didn't have. I said can't you look this up, hasn't it been filed? She said no. She furthermore said we get thousands of referrals every day and can't look them up. Really? Thousands every day? So I hung up. This is the essence of my complaint. I have been through two major medical nightmares and have been at the mercy of other big medicine clinics/mills and I will not get inmeshed in another uncaring staff that treats their customers like pieces of sentient meat; ever again. If the front office is this uncaring and callous, what would the rest of the care be like?

I felt so comfortable. They care.

I have been a patient with the poly clinic for twenty years. I used to have a wonderful, knowledgeable, compassionate doctor there named Dr. Venessa Edrich. Now I have seen two young not compassionate, not well networked (meaning they don't know where there are good specialist), sort of rude or cold doctors, I am currently having kidney stone issues and was in the ER yesterday. I had to go to the ER because my PCP at ploy clinic told me to go there. I have one 5x5 stone in my Ureter and one a little bigger semi blocking my kidney. The ER sent me home with the equivalent of 222, available over the counter in Canada, thinking I could be seen by a urologist asap. No appointments available with urologist until six days from now and they told me to call my PCP for better pain medications. So I called Dr. Sara Benveniste for some anti nausea medication and a stronger pain medication to help me weather this pain and vomiting. She said I had to come see her in person (45 minutes drive) in this condition and she "might" give me something stronger. Also she. Says she can't read the emergency report as the my chart doesn't work with any other facilities and hospitals except the U.W. And Swedish. And she says she can only do over the phone with my chart. This is not true because another specialists (plural) at the poly clinic texts me a link and we talk over the phone with out my chart. This is frustrating & a feels Cruel and telling me to go to the ER is abusing the system. Currently The Poly Clinic has a 2.3 star rating. Geese I wonder why. Off to the ER and as soon as I am feeling better I will be looking for a better PCP. UP DATE. Dr. Benveniste did call me personally at the end of the day. She still "could not" prescribe anything for my pain but did offer to submit a request to my insurance for an anti-nausea medication. She gave me a phone number to call someone to possibly come to my house instead of driving to the ER and suggested that I call the ER and ask them if they can prescribe something for my pain as they just saw me yesterday. I feel so disillusioned by how the Poly Clinic works to use the small neighborhood Hospitals to be bothered with things that are a PCP responsibilities. But these could very well be poly clinic regulations and tying the doctors hands. So I appreciate the call back at least it seems like she is trying to help.

First, don't trust the hours posted on the website, they posted special hours of 9 to 5, but on arrival there was a sign stating closed, sorry for the inconvenience. Second, don't go here if you may need xrays. They can only do very limited views. After a long wait, they did the xrays, said there were 3 fractured ribs, but they lacked capacity to do additional needed views to rule out internal injury, so we ended up at the ER anyway. Third, they did NOT call the ER as they said they would, so we ended up having to wait 3 hours for a doctor instead of just having the x rays. Very disappointing experience.

Impossible to get appts. Dr Impatient and receptionist

Going here for my visit has been one of the biggest nightmares. As a healthcare provider, I try to give as much grace as possible as I know everyone is short staffed but I have been incorrectly billed for over a year now. My visit was in Sept 2021 with Dr. Ng and I had called in prior to ensure my insurance would be accepted. I also provided my insurance card the day of my visit and paid the estimated copay of $30 at the appointment. A few months later, I received a bill for close to $700. I called the billing department and sent multiple emails, and they assured me each time my bill had been sent to insurance and this would be handled. In March of 2022, more than 6 months later, I finally talked to someone over the phone who admitted that THEY HAD NEVER SUBMITTED IT TO INSURANCE. I had provided my insurance at every point and somehow they stated they did not have my insurance nor was it ever submitted, even though this was told to me by every person prior to them. In September, I finally received notice that my insurance had covered the bill in full. I was relieved. Now, I have received ANOTHER BILL for $573, a different amount than before and stating that I owed this amount for a preventative eye care appointment. This is after the fact that I had already received notice that I did not owe them anything a few months back. THIS HAS BEEN OVER A YEAR. DO NOT GO HERE. As much as I liked the doctor, I will never go back. This has been the worst healthcare experience of my life.

Coded my annual appointment as a split visit, which cost me an unnecessary $420. They refuse to fix it and give you a PO Box to write a letter to. This place is a scam.

I scheduled an appointment here at the polyclinic months in advance to get two chronic issues treated by what I thought was an excellent clinic. Immediately once greeted by the nurse I was informed that only one of my issues would be treated today. I’ve seen in the reviews that other people have had this issue. I don’t think this is normal, I’ve been to plenty of doctors before where I could discuss multiple issues in one appointment. Working frequently like so many of us do it isn’t exactly easy for me to schedule a doctors appointment. Generally this place feels like an industrial processing line for patients, very cold and impersonal. Highly recommend against Polyclinic, just find someone else in your network.

I asked to be referred to an allergy specialist (for GI, IBS) from Dr. Sara Benveniste and thought that an internal referral would be a good idea. It was not.Dr. Doreswamy is not qualified to treat people with IBS. It was a complete waste of everyone's time and I walked away with a $488.57 bill. He wanted to do skin tests after disregarding my concerns and prior tests. He thought the skin test would offer something, but could not articulate what "that" was. I stated the test was not relevant and when I did this he was defensive.There was a language barrier and his staff seemed like they wanted to quit.His chart notes also did not reflect what objectively was discussed during the visit.