Hackensack Meridian Health - Ocean Care Center — Local services in Point Pleasant

Took my 6 year old in for a sprained ankle today. Wanted to go here to avoid Brick ER during COVID-19. Parking was great, we were brought right back and adult wheelchairs were available, not pediatric wheelchairs though. The PA Mark, had terrible bedside manner. Most of the time he was behind the desk. The nurse Sheila was nice. It wasn’t totally seamless with her, but she was the kindest person we came across here. My daughter was crying/screaming at times, in real pain and we waited a good amount of time to be seen. I wasn’t expecting Robin Williams from Patch Adams to walk in, but c’mon... a 6 year old in pain deserved some kindness/compassion. I’m a pediatric nurse and know that a laugh and getting on a kids eye level goes a long way. Mark walked in and you could tell he would rather be anywhere but there. The X-Ray technician was also snappy. She was no help transferring my daughter to the table. When I lifted my daughter from wheelchair my daughters ice pack and towels fell from the wheelchair to the floor. When I asked if the floors and surfaces were just cleaned she ignored me. I repeated myself and her response was, “ the floors are done once a day.... I don’t know what you want me to say”. Ummm, what? We are in an ER... during a pandemic!!! And I asked bc I would not want to use the items that came in contact with the floor. That was rude. And then said to go back to the room and wait, in which I had no clue where it was. Again, it was not crowded when we were there and felt like walking us back would have been better/kinder. My hands were full and I was overwhelmed with my daughter being hurt. After Mark saw the x-Rays and said it was sprained, I asked for a simple doctors note from him. I was clear when asking to state my daughter could go back to camp in 7 days. The accident happened at camp and I am sure they will require a note upon her return. She was negative for any breaks, but To be safe he recommends we go to ortho. But in his doctors note, he delegated her return date to the orthopedic specialist?! It’s a sprain.Of course I will follow up at ortho but this is a sprain! Mark said he would write a note to her camp but delegated it to a doc we haven’t even made an appointment with yet. That showed me what kind of place they were. I asked him to rewrite it and he did. So dumb that I even had to clarify that. Is he not a PA capable of a note? I gave my daughter motrin OTW to ER and it barely took the edge off. She was screaming, shaky and crying. I asked him for Tylenol with codeine in it and he refused me bc it wasn’t broken. Shiela said that a sprain can hurt more than a break bc it’s not stabilized by the cast. I agree with her, and disagree with Mark not giving her the script to help her through tonight and tomorrow. She was at a “10” on pain scale when Sheila asked her. Mark told me to go to my daughters doc to ask for the script. Ok... so let me hobble her over to another doctor (@6pm) when you are here and totally capable of writing it. If you are going to say NO then don’t tell me to go somewhere else. From Marks horrible bedside manner, to messing up a simple “doctors” note and then telling me to go somewhere else to get Script, I left upset. It was his demeanor that was bothersome. Sending me somewhere else for a script came across as passive aggressive and was the icing on the cake. We had a very wobbly exit in new crutches. We should have gone in the wheelchair but my daughter was persistent on crutches. Sheila watched us exit but didn’t help. Mark was at the desk. Totally watched us struggling out and offered no help. Front desk offered a WC at exit, I refused to put her in something that wasn’t cleaned. No one was cleaning there. That’s bad! I didn’t see 1 janitor. Even our room tray was dirty. While I’m at it I would like to mention they had gorgeous murals of kids at the beach painted all over their walls.It would have been nice to see some kids of color on the wall. We are a mixed fam. Go to Brick ER. THEY ARE...

BEWARE: We went in for swimmers ear while on vacation on a quiet mid-day afternoon. We were told our insurance would have a copay AND WE ASKED FOR NON EMERGENCY SERVICE. We were clear this was not an emergency situation and the woman in reception and everyone we talked to said "no problem". One month later we received a BILL FOR $1800 for a less than 5 minutes visit with a PHYSICIANS ASSISTANT- We never even saw a doctor. We feel we were misled by Ocean Care's website, they clearly say they offer NON-EMERGENT services, yet when you call to complain about your bill they claim they are an emergency room and justified in charging whatever they see fit. This is the only "Satellite Emergency Room" in the State of NJ and it appears that they take great care to make sure you don't know they are an E.R. Their entire facility is laid out to look like a walk-in Urgent Care facility. We spoke with a very combative Susan 4 times in "Patient Experience" and she said she filed our complaint on our behalf but we should have known better that this would be "Emergency Room Pricing" from the red sign when we walked in the door. Her job from what I can tell is to file formal complaints and not let you finish a sentence. She showed a complete lack of regard for our "patient experience" and was unsympathetic to the financial situation this routine $1800 ear infection has caused for our family. The fact that she is the one appointed to advocate for us on our behalf is truly disheartening. Susan promised a doctor would review our case and call us, to date that has not happened. After this incident we searched the internet to see if others had the same misleading experience. To our dismay, we found MANY MORE INSTANCES where this has happened to unsuspecting families on vacation...

I have visited this care center on numerous occasions and while the nurses, exam techs, registration ladies are all pleasant...I have a complaint about one specific doctor. Dr. Britt Lacher is easily one of the rudest doctors I have ever come across and she should not be working in medicine. My first experience with her was a couple years ago when I had a COVID scare and I had to come here because my primary was away and urgent care dropped my insurance. She proceeded to tell me she needed to check my throat and flipped out when I pulled my mask down, saying she wanted to do it. Really?? Today's visit (8/25/23) was just as brutal. I came in for a massive headache and I was unsure if it was related to my epilepsy or not. I attempted to inform her that my neurologist also recently dropped my insurance and she immediately said "Go to Jefferson hospital in Philly". She has horrible bedside manner. She kept cutting me off every time I tried to speak and also was supposed to order a CT scan on my head that never happened, as well as sent a prescription to my pharmacy that I never even took before (an anti-dizzy medicine called Meclizine). Aside from all of that, she NEVER examined me and the nurse did everything, including discharging me. The ER was not even close to busy- maybe four cars in the parking lot so what was her excuse for not even coming back?? The only good thing she did was give me an IV of Reglan and Toradol, and within an hour, my headache was gone. I still do prefer this facility if I don't need to go to the main hospital, but someone needs to teach this doctor some manners and how to treat...