John Theurer Cancer Center — Local services in Hackensack

I had an infuson and during that proces I did notice nurse did "flush" wrong way. Planty of valieble, expencive medicine was left in the line and I got all flush liquid injected. I did have that infusion done several times elsware and I have pretty good idea how it should be done. In addition it took them 7 hours to do that treatment because as nurse explained "they don't have what is needed at the moment" I had done that infusion elsware in 2 hours. When comes to nurses difficuld to talk to and Dr. Pecora head nurse who handled me her busines card with number and permision to call her if any questions she did not bother to return my call back not even once and I did call several times, I was leaving message, request to call me back. Customer service reps ware texting her too in my behalf. No call back not even once. Then billing!!! Beware there is something they will not tell you. I was very specific "is this doctor in the network?, what is it gonna cost me?" $10 copayment and two months after infusion I am getting bill by mail close to $2k. Did new patient addmitance personel mention anything about the cost I will have to pay? No, they will not tell you that. I was not avare off that. If I knew I would go to other clinic where I pay $10 a visit. Yesterday Apr. 23 I got mail saing I have 10 days to make paymenty or they will refer this debt to outside agency. Letter dated Apr. 17. 2024 On Apr. 24th I did call to make a payment plan and Mrs Hellen customer service rep. told me " you can no longer do the payment plan" Your account has been refered to collection agency YESTERDAY" Today is Apr. 25th They did that too early so what was the purpose of that mail? 4 years ago I had some test done and as I was taught I made sure my health insurance will cover the bill. Months later I am getting bill $300+ to pay. I call and ask why since I was clearly told by stuff that my cost will be $10 copaymment and that is it. Gues what they told me that the doctor who did interpretate the test results is not in the network and the one from my insurannce network was not there that day. Hehe thats the way to get some more money from patients, no mether with or without insurance. Considering all my bad experience I cant recomend this place and I will not go...

On January 19, 2022, my wife Kathy died of Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) after having been treated for the past 5 years at John Theurer Cancer Center. I'm not certain that she would have fared better at Columbia Presbyterian or Memorial Sloan Kettering, but I am absolutely certain that her care and treatment could not have been any worse that what she received at JTCC.

In the final weeks of her life, her oncologist was non-communicative. Owing to her disease state, Kathy was unable to fully process how bad her situation was, yet Kathy’s immediate family was not informed as to how critical her condition was and how close she was to her end of life.

Serious mistakes were made regarding her treatment over the course of her five years receiving care at JTCC. The worst of it involved giving her Paclitaxel infusions to treat the MBC when the problem was that she had developed a secondary primary non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) that was killing her. An entire month of precious time was lost that she could have been on the CHOP protocol that was ultimately administered for her NHL, simply because her breast cancer oncologist thought it was not necessary to perform a biopsy. The explanation given later was that Kathy's case was unusual. By the time Kathy started the CHOP protocol, her condition was so bad that she nearly lost her life and was in the ICU for over a month. Her mental acumen and memory were never the same again.

It is this sloppy, half-hearted diagnosing and care that makes me wonder why anyone would consider John Theurer Cancer Center as a top cancer treatment center. I always felt that the bar was set very low for Kathy's treatment. We felt that her team was simply satisfied that they were able to get her toward the longer range of the spectrum based on her morbidity. The goal should have been long-term survival. I only hope that future patients and caregivers are more diligent and successful than we were in finding a cancer facility and team with higher expectations...

I honestly don’t know what to say. My 48 year old mom was diagnosed with cancer around her heart. She underwent open heart surgery where they removed part of the tumor and fixed her heart. She was referred here. I was told that we had nothing to worry about by one oncologist because her cancer wasn’t spreading and was very tiny. After 7 months of chemo, doctor said she was doing amazing. The doctor even promoted immunotherapy. After 11 months from initially coming here after open heart, my mom passed away. She ended up having a tumor in her pancreas and 11 small tumors in her brain that apparently originated from that tiny tumor around her heart. It apparently spread, even after open heart surgery was performed in which most of her tumor was removed via surgery. It’s interesting how the new tumors were never diagnosed or mentioned until the very end. Either excessive amounts of radiation and chemo in a short span of 11 months might have provoked it. My mom had no PMH prior to surgery and never on any medication. I don’t know. I feel like the doctor here really didn’t focus much on the pt, it might be different depending on the dr. Most of the time we would see the nurse practitioner and not the doctor. The doctor would literally read the patient’s history or cat scan overview, while in the patient’s room. Using his 2 secs to read and then leave without properly looking at the patient or having a proper conversation. Hope and reassurance from a doctor is what cancer patients need. Patient’s mental mind set is what gives patients hope and is a big factor in their recover state so as a cancer doctor think of a better approach... take more time with pt. The staff here is good/friendly, but the dr my mom had needs to improve his patient care and be more up to date with...