Stanford Hospital — Local services in Palo Alto

I have had my fair share of bad experiences with the healthcare system (as you can see by my other reviews), but Stanford is by far the most vile, greedy, and miserable-to-deal-with healthcare institution in the Bay Area, if not the country. They are so evil that I am convinced that the sulfur smell in Palo Alto emanates not from the salt marshes of the bay, but rather from the demonic denizens of Stanford Health Care's corporate headquarters.

The administration and bureaucracy at this place is a Kafkaesque nightmare. There was no way to reach the clinic at which I was being seen directly, and there was no way to schedule or reschedule follow-up appointments over the phone, even though I was an established patient for years. Instead, all phone calls were directed to a call center that, according to one employee, serves over 40 different clinics at Stanford. The call center could not schedule appointments, so the call center would have to contact the clinic for me and ask them to call me back. Sometimes they would call me back. Sometimes they would not. Invariable, it would be at least 24 hours later during a time at which I could not answer my phone, and I would have to start from square one and call the call center again. While I was at Stanford, I spoke to numerous call center employees, schedulers, and nurses who all admitted that this system was awful and that they got frequent complaints about it.

Stanford is obviously trying to push people into using MyHealth instead of the phone, but MyHealth is also a disaster. I would try to request an appointment online, and every time I got a reply, it would be from a different person not familiar with what was going on. There were frequent technical glitches and errors. I made complaints to Patient Relations about all of this; they said they would "speak the the clinic", but it fell on deaf ears and nothing ever changed.

Despite having the worst communication and follow-up of any of the healthcare institutions I've dealt with, Stanford charges at least three times as much as everywhere else for care that is typically not any better: they billed me over $900 for a 20 minute video visit with a Physicians Assistant! Stanford is ALL about the money, and their total disdain for patients as human beings is evident. Unfortunately, Stanford is coasting off of it's old reputation, and they still have an endless stream of new revenue sources (ahem, new patients) that want to be seen here, so they don't have an incentive to change anything.

Believe the bad reviews, and go...

Shameful... My dad has Stage 4 Cancer and is 81 years old. He goes in several times to Stanford a month for shots and tests. It should be noted, that despite his age and diagnosis my father is still able bodied (at this point). The hospital parking lot has roughly 20 handicapped spots per deck. He has to arrive 30 minutes early in order to find a parking spot and follow people in order to do so. The parking is charged. There is nobody in the four level parking lot to help patients find their way, parking tickets, taxis, push wheelchairs etc. There might be one cart for the four levels. The elevator is not working. He had to walk four flights of stairs to get to the top level then walk a football field to get to the front of the 300 building. The names of the departments are not listed in a way which are easy to read. My father was needing a PET/CT which for anyone curious is labeled as "Nuclear Medicine" words which were no where on his appointment details. When asked how many PET scans the nurse gave per day she said, "60"... While my father has received a PET scan prior and therefore was aware of the after-instructions, he was not told anything this time around, which includes what is necessary to both flush out radio-active toxins and not contaminate your loved ones. When leaving no one informed my dad that he could pay at the exit but instead was told to pay at the kiosk which is directly in the sun and nearly impossible to read. It was not working. No valet service was offered and there is no wifi in the parking lot... I could just keep writing and writing... am I grateful my father is getting care for his cancer? 100 percent yes (he is one of the very fortunate ones) but is this acceptable? Absolutely not. We must demand more... We just must... It's disgraceful. "The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable...

I was recently hospitalized at Stanford Hospital for a couple of weeks, and I feel compelled to share my experience not out of bitterness, but in the hope that no one else has to go through what I did.

From the start, I felt completely dismissed and gaslighted by several members of the care team, including doctors, the case manager, the nurse practitioner, and even the floor nurse manager. I repeatedly expressed valid concerns about my health and safety, but I was met with indifference, condescension, and at times outright hostility. It became clear that patient advocacy was lacking or nonexistent throughout my stay.

What made this experience even more troubling was the absence of any effective system for escalation. I called guest services and patient relations to report what was happening and to ask for help. I explained in detail how I was being treated and how unsafe I felt. No one came. No one followed up.

To make matters worse, I was discharged in a manner I believe was unsafe and completely inappropriate, both physically and emotionally. It felt like the hospital wanted to get rid of me rather than ensure I had the proper support and care.

Stanford has a reputation for excellence, which is why I expected to receive competent and compassionate care. Unfortunately, what I experienced was the exact opposite. It’s deeply saddening that such a prominent institution allowed this to happen. Patients deserve better and there must be accountability.

I sincerely hope Stanford Hospital reviews this kind of feedback seriously and takes steps to improve communication, accountability, and patient safety. No one should leave a hospital feeling unheard, mistreated,...