Rothman Orthopaedics — Local services in Philadelphia

Rothman institute is too large and impersonal. I wish I had gone elsewhere. My experience was with their Bucks County offices.

At those, few of the full-time employees, from the billing department to the doctor and staff, appear to take their jobs seriously. Except for one student/trainee, I dealt with, and one nurse.

In addition, they have too many employees, clerks physician assistants, and techs., sitting around, laughing and joking with each other, for very long periods of time.

So many slacking off, and so often, that I am sure they could easily cut their staff in half and lower their fees.

Not to mention that it was disconcerting to be in pain, and have to witness that behavior

Also, Perhaps if these people actually worked, there would be fewer billing errors, scheduling errors, and lost records errors.

But the doctors also set a poor example. The doctors themselves are far too often late.

My doctor interactions were less than 5 minutes each time, yet I waited for at least 15 minutes past my scheduled appointment each time in the waiting room.

Then I waited another 15 minutes in the examination room. For the grand privilege of a brief 5-minute conversation with the doctor.

In addition, the billing staff made numerous expensive errors, causing me to have to waste seemingly endless hours on the phone with my insurance company to fix the errors.

The errors involved the billing staff copying the wrong insurance account numbers, several times, even though they photocopied my card, as well as double billing me, or billing for procedures never performed on me.

In addition, it appears that patient calls, regarding aftercare, or billing, are sometimes forwarded to a call-center in another state.

Worse, the call-center for billing as well as aftercare, does not always answer their phone. It just rings.

Even my insurance company had trouble getting through, sometimes.

This makes it very difficult to address their numerous billing errors.

Lastly, long after my expensive surgical procedure, I learned that there were less expensive, less invasive options that would lead to the same outcome for the particular injury I had, based on my presurgical x-rays, reviewed by other doctors, after my surgery at Rothman, two months, ago.

However, I was never informed of any options. The procedure the doctor performed was the most expensive and invasive of all procedures typically available. No options were ever mentioned.

That increased my out-of-pocket medical costs and left me upset about not being offered all my options.

Update 12/23/2022: I forgot to mention that there are trip and fall hazards everywhere in the Rothman offices.

Scales stinking out into the hallway, staff with pocket books next to their desk with straps hanging out on the carpet.

How careless, this is a place where people have broken limbs. ...

I have had generally overall positive experiences here. I had ankle surgery about 4 years ago and everyone there that took care of me was fabulous! The receptionists are always really friendly. Theres one that goes above and beyond but unfortunately I can’t shout her out because I can’t recall her name at the moment!

The last time I went in was for really bad hip pain I was experiencing early on in my pregnancy. Around 9-10ish weeks or so. I was recommended to go to their office to speak with someone and to see if I needed to get X-rays. Upon arrival I was taken back to get X-rays because I apparently COULD NOT be seen by the NP without X-rays. The technician I saw first was flabbergasted I was pregnant and told me to not get them and that it was ridiculous. I felt upset because I had filled out their very long questionnaire prior to being seen just like every other doctors appointment so why is that no one reads them before seeing a patient?

I went and sat back down. After waiting I was taken into a room and someone came in to do intake (he was very friendly) but then I overhear Amanda Reardon saying “I will not see her without X-rays” so here I am being placed in an uncomfortable situation and having to decide if I want to take X-rays this early on in my pregnancy because I was desperate to be seen.

I go and get X-rays done after signing off on them. Then Amanda comes in, does an exam on my hip and concludes (without looking at my X-rays) that I had a case of hip bursitis. I feel like I could’ve opted out of X-rays if she would have just spoken with me first about my symptoms. I also felt judged by her. Her bedside manner was not the kindest, maybe that’s just the way she is but it was pretty off putting.

I wrote a review when prompted by Jefferson about my experience and I’m finally taking the time to write one here. I hope she sees this and considers seeing patients prior to making them get...

I'll start with the good: I've never had a problem getting a quick appointment and everyone I've interacted with has been friendly and kind.

Now the bad: Wait times are horrific. To get 7 minutes with the doctor, you'd better block out a couple hours of sitting around or you WILL be late to whatever the next thing is in your day.

I had generally felt as though my clinical care was sufficient until I consulted with another private doctor on the same issue. What was taking several months of return visits and imaging wound up taking the new doctor 20 minutes to identify, explain thoroughly, and put me on a path for diagnostic clarity and treatment.

Incompetence with paperwork. Due to several layers of clerical errors with the authorization paperwork for an MRI, my procedure was ultimately denied. My insurance company informed me that the doctor's office had been informed of these errors yet failed to return three separate contact attempts when the insurance company sought corrections. This forced me to spend 10-12 hours in one week on the phone with my insurance company to attempt to sort it out. The deeper I went into attempting to solve this issue, the more mistakes I discovered Rothman had made. I had to take time off work to make time for this!

Poor responsivity. As a patient, I had grown accustomed to the fact that phone tag is the norm. But I'd have never even bothered mentioning this if it weren't ALSO for the failure to reply to my insurance company (noted above) on three separate occasions which was critical for an MRI to be approved. There is no excuse for this, and left me in a horrible position as the patient.

I can't say whether these issues originate with the doctor I saw or with the overall staff/office infrastructure so I won't presume. Either way, it doesn't matter to me as the patient since my care and experience...