Kennesaw Pediatrics — Attraction in Kennesaw

I have two children, a 3.5 year old and an 11 month old. My family has been going to the Kennesaw location since I was 38 weeks pregnant with the first child. I was recommended by my OB-GYN to do some pediatrician research by calling for an office tour. What I liked most about this office were the separate waiting rooms and cleanliness. They have three separate rooms, a well, a sick, and a newborn room, and none of them smell like muggy bleach with dirty diapers. What I was reluctant on was the variety of different pediatricians, but I was reassured that we can pick a general one when we come to find one that we preferred over the others. With sick visits, we will see whichever pediatrician is available the day off or we need to wait to be scheduled with our preferred pediatrician.

At the first hospital round, we fell in love with Dr. Anne Marie Touhy. She was the on-call pediatrician when we had our first child. We visited this office frequently for the first 6 months of our child's life. They have lactation consultants who are very knowledgeable. The office is breastfeeding-friendly. They don't rush you. Even when they're at max capacity, they tell you to leave when you're ready.

The only few times I feel rushed is at check-in, but I understand that those staff are multi-tasking and trying to work around a lot of factors (e.g. questions, insurance, new patients, phone calls, scheduling, diffusing impatient parents, working with loud children). This office is very tech savvy. When the systems are down, the office flow becomes snail paced. I've been to many pediatricians when I was a child and rarely ever we were in the offices for less than an hour total. When an office visit here at Kennesaw Pediatrics are less than an hour, I am very thankful. When it's over an hour, it's only happened, at most, four out of the 20 plus times we've been here.

The office has gone through a remodel and the newborn office feels like you're in a breastfeeding/privacy meditation spa office; you'll see when you get there. My 11month old and I love it! My 3.5 year old isn't very keen of it though because it doesn't have the train and fish tanks that he's used to. However, it does have an iPad at each waiting booth in the waiting room. Each booth has curtains as well.

This office tries to be very accommodating. Before the remodel, the newborn room was next door to the sick room. If my then 3 year old was fussy, they would offer to let him play in the sick room if there weren't other sick kids around or give him a ice pop. Whenever I lugged in the carseat even when I had only one child, the nurse/med tech taking us to the room would always offer to carry the carseat, diaper bag, or the baby.

There was a very sad year where we had to part ways momentarily to Kaiser. We returned to Kennesaw Pediatrics as soon as we could with our insurance company. Dr. Touhy wasn't there when we returned. Since then, we have met a few pediatricians and like Dr. Sarah Yount the most.

The office has a high turnover though. When you research where the other pediatricians went, they all went on to more specialty things like research or business management. So, I've learned to accept that this office is a stepping stone for awesome pediatricians.

Kennesaw Pediatrics is very involved in the community. I've yet to see any other health independent practice as involved as they are in the community...

The staff is very nice. The doctors are very nice. Make and appointment, arrive early, expect to wait a very long time. To me an acceptable amount of time to wait TOTAL (in holding area and in the patient room) is 15 minutes. I am not including the time you spend with the tech or nurse doing vitals and IPOC (which takes about 7 minutes). So, when I had to wait 55 minutes in holding and 40 in the patient room on one visit; 45 minutes and 25 minutes; 75 minutes and 35 minutes, needless to say my expectations were not met on any of the three visits. They treat it as if it is a walk-in type of place. To make an appointment and wait these hours is absolutely unacceptable. Not a person in that office would disagree or would want their time wasted like this, but no plan of action has been made or put into place to correct this poor practice. A round table meeting needs to happen where all employees are able to discuss ideas on how they can get people seen BY the PERSON the appointment was made with within 20 minutes of appointment time. For instance, if a patient has an appointment and gets checked in on the computer at the 17 minute passed the appointment mark, a flag appears either in the software or the employees training that says...The appointment has been canceled. That the patient will have to reschedule for another time slot in the future. OR sit there (like a walk-in) and wait for a lull to get squeezed in. TOUGH for them. Show up on time. If people are notified that they will lose their appointment after 15 minutes of being late, two things will happen: They will start showing up on time OR they will choose a different doctors office. The latter, will lose some money, but gain the appreciation of the 90% of us who are ON time. In the long run they would gain patients because of this management of time and this showing of simple respect. It is very difficult to keep your cool and be cordial and polite when your valuable time is trashed in this manner. It is a mentality of: ME- "Allow me to show up early because I value your time and appreciate the appointment and your profession." THEM - "I do not value your time, I do not care about your day and your other plans. And I don't even care enough to have dialogue with you about our lateness. You can sit out there and wait as if you were a walk-in." The response you get from them when you just can't take another minute of waiting is, "We had emergencies this morning that got us off schedule". My solution: Have a doctor staffed exclusively for emergencies. All day the only thing that doctor does is see emergency cases and take "can I speak to a doctor?" calls. Some days this doctor on rotation will be super busy and some days not. As the case with emergencies. If you have an emergency doctor visit you get the doctor on CALL, not your regular physician or the one of your choosing. One star is for the nice staff. The other star is for the nice Doctors. The missing three stars are for poor running of a business. A doctors office is about two things. Healing the sick and keeping us healthy (with a smile). Making appointments and showing up on time to do so. They...

I went for a regular wellness visit for my Daughter on March 18, 2013. I would like to share my experience with the visit.

The most important part first. I was told that a hearing/vision test would be done. However NO ONE discussed with me the results of these tests and what is on the form that was provided to me is simply cryptic to me. (This is very bad).

Blood was drawn for some blood work and I HAVE NO clue what this is for. This could be a routine / normal thing but as a parent I think it is not too much to ask to help understand what sort of tests and what sorts of shots are being given for the day. (This is again bad. You see if I’m a pediatrician and know enough about these things I won’t be visiting Kennesaw Pediatrics. Right?)

With my previous pediatrician, every time the kids needed series of shots, (usually more than one) they ALWAYS had two nurses administer the shots simultaneously and it was instantly done. I was surprised to see they don’t do this.

Scheduling is horrible. I waited close to 40 minutes today. Last time it was close to one hour for my youngest. If they could communicate to you how long the wait is (in spite of you scheduling ahead and waiting), perhaps it would provide an opportunity to change your conflicting schedule accordingly.

You call to schedule; the person taking the schedule could easily provide you a link to fill in questionnaire related to your visit or to login and do the same. You go in your scheduled time and they either give you an ipad or a paper workbook to fill information in.

Here’s the problem with this approach. This paper work you need to fill in, you need to fill in Patient Name / Parents Name / SS # etc, etc,. (Which they already have in their system, or don’t they for real??). As important the doctor’s and nurse’s time is, parent’s time is equally important. Try going to the airport and make an excuse to hold the flight for you because you’re a health care practitioner or you run one.

I still remember the doctor I used to see when I was a kid. He’ll even stop and ask me when I run in to him in store etc, to ask how I’m doing and so on,.. I previously had a visit with Kennesaw Pediatrics for my youngest daughter. . I firmly believe that kids are more excited to see a familiar face rather than a different doctor every time. What surprises me is that they don’t recommend this when you call to schedule. I was suggested a random practitioner but I insisted that I see the practitioner that I saw before.

I initially chose Kennesaw Pediatrics based on the feedback from other parents on their website feedback page. I hope that my comments are also included and considered as constructive criticism rather than...