Sequoia Institute for Surgical Services — Attraction in Visalia

The doctors and nurse staff are excellent. No complaints there. The doctors and nurses are attentive and have an extensive knowledge and answer any and all questions or concerns with well thought out answers. The receptionist and surgery scheduling department need work. The receptionists intentionally overbook the doctors and leave you waiting for hours after your appointment time. I went in the day after having knee surgery and waited in pain with no explanation for over two hours after my appointment time. The surgery scheduling staff do not care to read over the entirety of approvals or information from insurance companies leaving you guessing and having to stay on top of them to do their job. I had to call them the day before I was scheduled to have surgery and ask why I had no information as to when to show up to the hospital. They explained that they knew a week prior that it was not going to go through with the originally scheduled date and mentioned nothing to me, the patient. I had to sit on the phone with my insurance for hours while they reviewed the information sent to Sequoia Surgery to ensure that everything was approved with the correct codes and correct fax numbers. To my surprise my insurance did nothing wrong. Following this I had to stay on top of them, calling them daily to ensure that they were getting me taken care of and that my surgery would be completed at the newly scheduled date. I am dreading my next knee surgery though Sequoia Surgery, not because of the excellent doctors that i have worked with there, but simply because of the negligence and lack of care that is shown by the surgery...

This is based on my last visit with Timothy Thiesen, I took the day off work for this visit to talk about carpal tunnel surgery on both my hands, only for Timothy to come in room for barely 2 min just to tell me “I have a lot going on there with my carpal tunnel” and he suggested surgery. And then said for me to schedule an appointment with another surgeon, well isn’t Timothy a surgeon? Don’t get me wrong Timothy was very nice , but why waste my time and a missed work day for me to spend 2-3 minutes basically to tell me to make another appointment? He didn’t explain anything about the procedure or anything , and it wasn’t busy for him to be rushed to see next patient. Another reason I was not happy with this “waste of time “ visit is I have to pay for the bus to get here and the fact I missed work, so you made me lose money for 2 minutes to tell me make another appointment with the other surgeon to talk about surgery, when I thought that’s what I was there for that day!! On a different visit few months back I was in the room waiting to have injections, I waited for 1 1/2 hour while nobody came in and I had to go so that was another wasted visit and that wasn’t the first time. If this is how you run your clinic it really makes me question “Do I really want a surgeon from here take care of me “? Thank you for your time in reading this and allowing me to vent....

I have been going here for over two years. I’ve had easily 20 office visits. The staff is rude. The wait times are ridiculous. They overbook so they can make as much money as possible. The visit with the doctor is rushed and useless half the time. This place is 100% about the money. They prefer to string you along as long as they can trying milk the system for as much money as they can get. I was lied to over and over again. They intentionally made me think that my surgery was being blocked by workers comp when it wasn’t. I was told that I needed to do PT more than once, had 4 EMT tests, multiple MRIs, etc. They will use the excuse that they are trying to avoid surgery and want to go with “conservative modalities”. In reality, they want you to have as many appointments as possible. If you need surgery and it’s the type of surgery that is actually very conservative and has a high success rate (like carpal tunnel or cubital tunnel), it’s better for them to string you along because they make more money that way. If they do surgery and you feel better, it’s likely you won’t have to come back anymore. That results in less money in their pocket. This place is not worth your time. Just another doctors office that does not care about patient outcomes. Profits...