Los Robles Regional Medical Center Emergency Room — Local services in Thousand Oaks

Saddened to say; and hate to even think about it, but this whole experience for me was cruel and unusual, and I could have lost my life. I came into the emergency room at approximately 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 12, 2025, doubled over with right lower quadrant abdominal pain; dry heaves; fever and chills; and weak. I checked into the kiosk and about a half hr. later was called to the first intake desk. I told the representative about my symptoms, and also explained that in addition to these systems, I have a hereditary blood disease (thalassemia) whereas when I get sick, I can pass out because of hemoglobin levels, etc., and asked if I could please be placed in the back on a bed to be triaged. I then was told to sit back down in the main emergency room. In about another hr., I was called back to a nurse station where they took my vitals and listened to my ailments. They gave me something for the nausea which did help the dry heaves. I again asked to lay down as I was weak and felt like I would pass out. I was told no and to sit in the hallway. Sometime later, I was taken in for a contrast ct scan. I again told the technician I need to lay down and again was brought to the metal chair in front of the nurses' intake area. During this time, all symptoms continued intensely and I was shaking. I asked a walking by nurse for a blanket. The blanket never came. I asked to talk to a Dr. I eventually got to talk to a Dr., but again was told to go back to the metal chair. Not sure about the timing because my body was in shock, I was brought back to a room at about 12: 30 a.m. 5/13 to learn that I had appendicitis. I was then put on a bed where I was prepped to bring upstairs, and had the surgery 12 hrs. later. Dear Lord, is this what the medical profession has come to? Treating people like animals, or less. Los Robles' emergency is either grossly understaffed, and/or has under qualified technicians and nurses, and definitely does not have the capacity to serve the community. But the big question is "where did this cruel, unusual and inhumane behavior come from"?. I also had problems in my hospital room when the alarm from the iv apparatus would go off for up to 45 minutes at a time blaring in my ears when I was laying there in pain from the surgery and had migraine headaches. This happened at least on 2 occasions. I would call for a nurse several times and was told they would come. When the nurse came after the 45 minute occasion, she said she didn't know because she was on the other side of the hallway, even tho I spoke to someone 3 times from the call button. They say never say never, but god willing, I will never, or will I ever bring my husband, to Los Robles, despite the fact it is only a 15 minute drive from my home. I certainly hope this review does not fall on deaf ears; and that this inhumanity does not happen to others. I also had emergency room patients tell me they couldn't believe what I was going thru, and for so long--and I replied maybe because I kept...

I would NEVER return to this hospital by choice. I was brought to this hospital ER by paramedics following an injury to my head, shoulder and hip, and placed directly in front of the nursing counter, where I was completely ignored for quite some time while several people behind the counter talked to one another. When my name wristband was being placed on me, I had to point out that my name was incorrect. After this wristband was corrected, I was left in this location for quite some time before being moved down a clutter hallway and into a room with a nurse who talked at me but ignored any questions I had. When I was taken for MRI/CT scans, the person pushing my bed thru the cluttered hallway, did his best to navigate this obstacle course, but still had to scrape my bed up against the wall and other items left in the hallway to get to the MRI/CT exam room, where he had to hit the door jam, to be able to back up and get into this room. The tech who did the scan of my head suffered from the same talking at me and over me, but not wanting to hear anything I was saying. Only after I pointed out that his talking over me was rude, did he allow me to ask if there was any way my head could be elevated a bit to alleviate my vertigo, but he said this wasn't possible. Following my scan, he did help sit me up, but if the gentleman who brought me for this scan wasn't in the room to catch me from falling off the exam table because of my vertigo, I would have gotten injured. After spending 4 hours in this ER watching multiple hospital personnel walk aimlessly back and forth and have plenty of time to stop and chat with fellow employees, while my husband had to take me to the bathroom multiple times because no one showed up to assist me after he went to the nursing counter to request help, I was told my diagnostic tests (x-rays of my shoulder and hip, MRI/CT of my head and hip) were negative and released with an After Care paper that didn't even have the hospital's name on it. So on a 'A-F' grading scale, I would give this hospital ER and personnel a 'D' grade, with the exception of the woman assigned to cleaning the restrooms and surrounding area, the gentleman assigned to wheel patients to and from the MRI/CT room, and the guy who came from the Financial Dept office to get my insurance, who deserve an 'A' grade for being the only employees I could see who were actually focused on the job they were hired to do. As for the doctor who was assigned to me, who I saw initially when I was put in a room, and then again when I was told I was being released and I asked to speak with him, which is when he decided to do the CT of my hip, (as I suspect he was taking care of a lot of patients at once) I would simply recommend that he asks (or demands) that the management of Los Robles Hospital supply him with support staff who are more focused on doing the job they were hired to do, so he is not blamed for some catastrophic injury or death...

This is the worst ER I have ever seen. The facilities are terrible and they engage in egregious price gauging for basic medical treatment. The staff were good.

I was experiencing severe gastroenteritis, probably caused by norovirus, with vomiting and/or dry heaves every few minutes for 6+ hours. It was a weekend in the evening and I just needed some IV saline to rehydrate and IV medications to suppress the nausea so that I could stop the dry heaves, since I could not keep down any oral medication.

When I arrived in the ER I was triaged and sent in for treatment pretty quickly. I went into a small room with 4-6 curtained off chairs where they were treating different patients. I spoke to a doctor for about 90 seconds, then a nurse put an IV in and gave me three IV medications: Zofran, Benadryl, and Metoclopramide. Then they connected a bag of saline to the IV. After that, I was taken in a wheelchair to the hallway outside that room, where I sat with about 20 other patients and waited for the saline to administer and the medications to start working. I'm not sure how many patient rooms they have, but there were a lot of us just sitting in wheelchairs in the hallway. I wouldn't necessarily be complaining about this part if not for the amount they billed me for use of their facilities (see below). When the saline finished I left.

For this treatment, Los Robles billed my insurance company $15,000! And this amount does not even include the doctor who spoke to me, for which I was billed separately in a different insurance claim. After deductible and coinsurance my out of pocket cost was ridiculous for the treatment received. Comparing the billing codes in my insurance claim to typical costs published at FairHealthConsumer.org, Los Robles was charging 4-10x the "fair price" published by this resource. As a few examples, they billed $200 for a bag of saline, $1,400 for a CBC blood test, and $1,000 for a lipase blood test (a single test!). They billed $8,500 for "emergency medical care"—since all doctors, medications, and blood tests were billed as separate items, I assume this "emergency medical care" line item is the amount I owe for use of hospital facilities, which in my case consisted of sitting in a wheelchair in their hallway for 30 minutes.

If you are having an emergency in the area you don't have many other options nearby, so of course you must look after your health and get treatment. However, if you have the time and means to get yourself to a different hospital, perhaps in the valley, I strongly recommend you do that. Los Robles is predatory with their billing practices and should not be allowed to operate this way. In my case, an extra 30 minutes being driven to a different hospital in the valley would have been uncomfortable but not unsafe, and in retrospect that is absolutely what I wish I had done. I would not return to Los Robles except under the most dire/urgent circumstances with no...