The Blavatnik Family – Chelsea Medical Center at Mount Sinai — Local services in New York

My 77 yr old, mom has been receiving chemo treatment for a late stage of ovarian cancer at the Chelsea center for the past few months. Yesterday was my mom’s 4th visit for chemo and the most stressful experience thus far. For a hospital treating people with cancer you would think that they would be more accommodating and sensitive to the needs of the family. They say when one person has cancer, the whole family has cancer with them. To avoid long car rides that can trigger my mom’s stress levels, we usually take a 3rd person with us to access the HOV lane. My daughter came as she happened to be off from school. It was her second time coming to treatment. Upon entry to the infusion center the nursing assistant quickly denied access to my daughter explaining that only 1 person was permitted at a time to enter with the patient. Surprised, I asked her if the rules had recently changed because this was the first time we were ever told there was a limit in the amount of people entering and that my daughter had been permitted to stay with me in the past. Furthermore, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her in the waiting room alone as she was a minor. She then explained that she would not be permitted because she was underage. I pleaded with the facility staff to please permit my child to enter for just today as I was completely unaware of this rule that had not been enforced in the past. I didn’t want to make a choice between supporting my sick mom or maintaining the safety of my 13 year old in a public facility. I spoke with the front desk supervisor, the patient representative coordinator and the nursing administrator, each person adamantly denied her entry, insistent on policy that could not be swayed in any way to accommodate the individual needs of our family on that particular day. In addition they tried to excuse the act by maintaining that it was a matter of safety for my own child since chemo is a highly hazardous treatment it could potentially put her health at risk. Im not sure how something being administered intravenously could be hazardous to my teenage daughter. I told the administrative staff that this was not my first rodeo- unfortunately cancer runs in my family and I have had to experience chemo treatments centers before in other hospitals. We were never given restrictions on age or number of people present. My mother was forced to be left alone for aprox 5 hours. I went in periodically throughout the day for a few minutes to check in on her. She was emotionally stressed being alone for such a long period of time while receiving chemo. I requested that the nurse practitioner who works with my mom’s oncologist to please speak with me when she arrived. I also posted a message in the portal for help from doctor and/or nurse practitioner. No one responded to my message or came out into the main lobby area where I was with my daughter to speak to me while they tended to my mom that day. To say that I was disappointed is an understatement. It was an incredibly disheartening experience that has shaped my opinion and view of this...

I was scheduled to have a bone density scan on 1/18. I arrived, only to be told by a security guard that the facility was closed. I wasted over an hour of my time, plus travel cost both ways, and risked COVID exposure for nothing. The next day I called my doctor's office at Blavatnik/Chelsea and was told that yes, I did have a scheduled appointment on 1/18, she saw it in the system. No one could seem to tell me why I was given an appointment on a holiday, and even worse, why I was not called to reschedule before going all the way there for nothing. My doctor's staff was very apologetic, but when I was told to call the radiology department to reschedule, the receptionist who rescheduled my appointment simply told me, "It was MLK Day", in an unapologetic tone. Thank you, Captain Obvious, I already knew that, but I assumed that this medical facility would be open since I was given an appointment on that day. This is an egregious flaw in the scheduling system, showing complete disregard and disrespect to patients' health, time, and money. I have never in my entire life had this happen with any other medical facility. Doesn’t anyone check the schedule to make sure appointments can be kept? This could have easily been avoided with the correct use of scheduling software that blocks out holidays, or a simple phone call beforehand telling me a scheduling error had been made and the facility would be closed. I was given a new appointment for the next day, and obviously they were now overbooked. It took an entire hour and one minute from my appointment time to be called into the exam room, and the waiting room was full, not a good thing in a pandemic. In speaking to some people, I found that I was not the only one who had been scheduled on a holiday. I am now considering finding another doctor to continue my treatment at Columbia, since this has been such a negative experience. I hate to write negative reviews, but I just thought people should know that this occurred, hopefully the system will be changed so it won’t happen to anyone else. The unfortunate thing is that the actual doctors and medical staff are excellent, truly extraordinary and highly competent, kind, caring and professional. Once I got into the exam room, my test was done quickly and efficiently and was actually a pleasant experience. But a facility that can make appointments on days they are closed, or books patients way beyond their capacity, especially in a pandemic, is completely inexcusable. Many patients at this facility are fighting cancer and other serious illnesses, they are literally risking their lives every time they go out to see their doctors and get necessary tests done. At...

Mount Sinia has the best doctors I have ever encountered! Across the board really great health care! So why the one star? The Kafkaesque nightmare perpetrated by MS Billing Dept. They set up a plan in which my CC was auto charged each month. But then sent me to collections anyway! Their response was that I shouldn’t care that my 810 credit score could be ruined even though I had always paid all bills on time – only after several hours of asking nicely, then pleading, then yelling did they rectify their mistake. Then they put me on a 2nd plan, so I was auto paying MS 2x each month (silly not to have just one larger payment, but fine). Fast forward to yesterday: I received a threatening pre-recorded machine call to call them back immediately, which I did. The MS billing rep insinuated that I was lying, claimed I called the “wrong dept” (even though I had hit redial), and kept tittering at me, bf hanging up w/o resolution bc it was 5p (they called me!). But bf heading home for her fun w/e, to totally disempower the patient, the rep cancelled my auto pay so I am now forced to call MS each month (2x per month I guess?) or risk default - this action was punitive and quite frankly cruel. This review describes just the tip of the iceberg, there is so much more to the MS accounting nightmare story! But just to shine some light on the unnecessary stress and harassment of MS Billing that makes using MS so not worth it, despite the superb healthcare you would...