The Howard Center — Local services in Tifton

If I could leave negative stars I would!!!!! My wife and I are expecting a baby, my third, her first. We chose Howard Center because we heard nothing but good things about it. I guess we may have spoken to the three people that have had a good experience, because we do not have one good thing to say about this place. First we haven't seen the same person twice since we began going there. Every time we go my wife has to explain everything to them again because as I said it's never the same person and they obviously don't know anything about putting notes in a patients chart. Great way to build a relationship and trust with your patients!! We asked them for the blood test that determines the sex of the baby and the test that checks for any problems with the baby. When we show up for the appointment(2 hour drive one way mind you) they tell us that the ONE person that draws blood for the test has already gone for the day. This goes back to the whole notes in the patients chart issue. They should have scheduled it for a better time. They called her back to the office and she draws about 8 tubes of blood from my wife for the test. They tell us to check back in one week and we will have the results of the gender test. We in the mean time go ahead and arrange our gender reveal party at our church for family and friends. We were told that it should be back in time but we planned enough to reschedule if we needed to. Sure enough we call the day we are supposed to for our results. They have nothing for us. That was Friday 08/04/2017. They tell us to call back today and they know they will have the results in. No worries because we have scheduled our gender reveal party for 08/19/2017. My wife calls them about 20 minutes ago. Not only do they not have our results in, they show no sign of the blood ever being drawn and shipped to the lab. The person my wife spoke with didn't offer to call and check with the lab or anything. Her solution to the problem...."well I guess you can call the lab in California and see if they have them." My wife called the lab herself because at this point she is furious. Nope, nothing. No blood, her name isn't in their system, they've never heard of her. She calls these incompetent people back. The only solution even offered for any of this is "well when is your next appointment? We can do a sonogram then." She informed them we would not be back to this circus of a show. We are now looking for a new doctor and hope we can get the gender results in time for our party we have already rescheduled once. I have never seen such an unorganized mess in my life. How they are in business if this is how they treat even 1/4 of their patients is beyond me. We are just happy we found out about this nonsense this early into our pregnancy so that we have time to find a doctor that actually cares about...

Although about half of the staff are friendly as most of the comments say, it doesn't make up for the lack of organization or information given to mothers. This office is basically a clinic that is only beneficial if you are on Medicaid or Medicare. I had never been to this office until I became pregnant with my first child. On my initial visit I was told that since I have "Commercial Insurance" (BC/BS) that I would have to pay a $400 deposit, but no one could explain what that money was actually for. I had to actually contact my insurance company for them to contact the office to get an explanation for the $400 deposit, which was never mentioned again afterwards. I visited the office on four separate occasions and saw a different nurse each time. There was a different ultrasound tech each time, a different person to give me my results each time, and I only saw one of the three doctors at the practice ONCE in those four visits. The nurse informed me that there's no way to know for sure which doctor would be delivering my child because all three also rotate shifts at the hospital and there's a chance I could possibly never meet the doctor that would actually perform the delivery of my child. None of the nurses seem to know a single thing about me when they came into the room, not even that I was a first-time mom. So I had to go through my entire history, situation, everything with each individual nurse on each separate occasion. None of the procedures or what to expect was explained to me and when it came time to draw the blood for the genetic marker test the whole process was never explained to me. When I called the office a week after my blood was drawn it was then explained that the process can take 8 to 10 business days and the blood that was drawn has to be shipped to California to a lab there. On the 10th business day after my blood had been drawn, I contacted the person in charge of Netera at the Howard Center, which is the name of the program, she then informed me that there was no record of my blood ever having been drawn, shipped, received by the lab, tested...NOTHING and recommended that I call the lab myself. After contacting the lab, I found they have no record of my blood ever being sent to them so I still don't know where my 8 vials of blood went that were drawn on July 26th because there is no record. This is the most unorganized "doctor's office" I have ever visited in my life and I will not use them ever again or recommend...

My appointment was at 3:30 and I got there at 3:35 because of traffic. I called and let them know I would be about 5 minutes late and was told that it would be no problem. I get checked in and I wait almost two hours before I get called back. They were very busy so I understood but when I asked if they knew how long the receptionist got an attitude and said “well you can see we are clearly busy”. I let that slide no problem. I finally get called back by the nurse and was asked what I was here for. I told her that I had been having yeast infection constant and couldn’t get any relief. The mood in the room completely changed and I was made feel like I was nasty person for having a yeast infection. They didn’t have a room so I was told to sit on the couch and wait until I could get in a room. At this point I felt very uncomfortable and didn’t want to be there. I sat there until 5:15 until they found me a room. I get back in the room and wait for Mandy. Mandy walks in and ask me what seems to be the problem, I explain that I have had a yeast infection after yeast infection and can’t get any relief. Again she gives me a nasty look and makes me feel uncomfortable. I said could this be because of my IUD and she simply rolls her eyes. I ask if it is because of my IUD could I have it taken out because I’ve wanted my IUD out because I’ve had weight gain and I’ve not been happy with myself or my health since getting my IUD. She simply tells me no that, that is not going to happen. At this point I was fed up. She swabbed me and said it would take 7-10 business days. I tried to explain to her that her medical assistant was very rude to me and made me feel like a nasty person because of a yeast infection and Mandy had the audacity to take up for her behavior. Saying that “well it’s just been a busy day for everyone”. This type of behavior is not acceptable and when I get my results I will be asking to be discharged as a patient. I will be taking my business else where, somewhere my needs will be met and I will feel like I’m being heard. I’ve never been so disappointed in a facility before. OH and not to mention the medical assistant went around sharing...