Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care — Local services in Town of Hempstead

Northwell Health talking about integrity and ethics? What a joke. Their Urgent Care Clinic are a bad joke and are only a Cash generating side business for the organizaton. Because my Primary Care Physician is very busy (because he is good) and sometimes you can't get an appointment right away, I went twice to Northwell Health Urgent Care in Lynbrook, both visits within a couple of weeks of each other, to be checked out and find a solution to a bad cold I have had for about 2 months. I was never seen by a Doctor (M.D., that is). In fact, I was only seen by a Physician's Assistant, who prescribed some antibiotics, and nothing else. My Insurance Company (Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield) was charged $375.00 for the 15 minute visit, which did not get me better. A couple of weeks later, I went back, same story, same cost to my insurance Company, different antibiotics, which did not work either. Despite the fact that my plan had no copay for the visit, on both occasions they tried to get a $65.00 copay out of me. I did some digging and complained with their Compliance Department, which to my dismay and disppointment advised me their business model is to only have these Centers staffed by Physician Assistants or Nurse Practitioners. No M.D.'s on staff, whatsoever. My understanding is that these Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners can only treat patients, provided they are under the direct supervision of a Physician. Not so, according to their Compliance officer.Does this mean that anyone can set up shop and treat patients, as long as they have a phone to consult with a Physician? In my opinion, that is NOT DIRECT SUPERVISION and it is completely unethical and lacks any integrity, specially when you are dealing with an Urgent Care facility. In my humble opinion, these Clinics are not set up for giving proper medical care; otherwise, they would be properly staffed. I will never go there again. These Centers were designed to milk the Insurance Industry and not for any other reason. $750.00 later, I had no relief and did not get any better Unbelievable, I learned the hard way, I will never go back. When LIJ was LIJ, it was good. I was operated 3 times at LIJ, Lake Success (cardiac angiograms) and they took good care of me. Ever since Norhwell Hell got involved with LIJ,, their priorities and else changed. Profit and greed is their new thing, not proper Patient care. Needless to say, I hate medical institutions. They are full of poop, up to the brim. I wish the AMA would investigate them for medical fraud. these words are my opinion, as I am not happy with the improper care I received, which is completely disproportional to the amount my Insurance Company was billed and milked. It would have been far better for me to go to any drugstore, buy Tylenol and not waste my time with Northwell Hell. Patient beware, specially if you are old like I am (71 in another month). You might not come alive out of an "experience" like I had. Had I been treated by a real Doctor, what would they have charged for the visit? $1,500.00 ? This is ridiculous and unacceptable, in this day and age. This business model must have been created by a greedy whack job, whose priority was never Patient...

I’ve been there several times for my son and my daughter. This last experience there was awful. It was Easter Sunday morning and my daughter woke up with pain in her ears and a sore throat. I was able to sign her in for an 8 am appointment, which is a great feature. When I got there they took me right away, checked her ears and swabbed her throat. I was told her had fluid in her ears which is not an ear infection but causes by ear nose and throat all connected. Her step test came back negative but the PA did say she had tonsillitis. I was prescribed augmentum for her for 10 days, twice a day... she said if the strep culture from lab comes back positive this antibiotic will cure it. Ok I said and were off to pharmacy. Get to pharmacy and the pharmacist asks me “ did they Tell you a dosage there because it says use as directed”. No! She never told me a dosage !! They also called in a children’s Benadryl and a nasal spray which pharmacist said I didn’t need. So now I had to call over to the urgent care and get the correct dosage. She never mentioned anything about the other two she called in.Mind you I never saw a doctor only a PA and a nurse and to be quite honest with you, she had no tag that even said her title of PA. Already annoyed ... on Tuesday I get a call from the office saying the strep came back negative from lab so stop the medication immediately. Wait?! Didn’t you tell me she had tonsillitis?! Why would I stop medication?! The girl had no idea, she told me she’s simply reading notes From a screen and it says to stop of strep test comes back negative. The rapid test was negative and I understand sometimes the lab test pick up positive. But why am I being told to Stop medication if she was diagnosed with tonsillitis?? Still no answer. She said she would have someone call me. Now It’s Sunday, a Week later and no one has reached out to me. I continued the medication. When I was there last Sunday on Easter morning, there was no mention of stopping medication. There was no mention of dosage. There was no mention of nasal spray and Benadryl being called into pharmacy. There was no site of a doctor. There was no return call regarding whether or not to stop meds! I’m extremely disappointed and lesson learned not to bring children to an urgent care. I’ll take the ride next time to my Regular...

I came into this office yesterday for help with an issue that had arisen following my discharge from the hospital. For some reason I was released with only two days of medication for a life-threatening diagnosis. The hospital, the specialist they’d referred me to, and my PCP were all refusing to refill the script and telling me I needed to contact one of the other offices - and the kicker is that they were all part of the Northwell system so they could read my file and see why I needed this medication and also that at this point I was completely out. I’d been calling these offices for days, and had been physically going to each location trying to get help, to no avail. The closest to a helpful response I was getting was “we’ll leave a message for the doctor and someone will call you back,” but then I they never did get a callback out of ten attempts (I checked the number of calls I made just now). Finally, out of desperation, I decided to try an urgent care.

I’m so glad I came to this location - the person at the front desk was kind and responsive, and as I was explaining to her what I had going on, one of the PAs came up and mentioned she’d overheard the situation. She told me they wouldn’t be able to help me at the office, but for the first time in two days I got actual helpful advice. She both gave me pointers for how to get what I needed from my PCP’s office while he was away, as well as how to contact the person at the hospital who could help, instead of getting endlessly passed around to different extensions. Maybe most important, she validated the scary situation I was in.

I was so flustered at the time I didn’t think to get her name - just thanked her profusely. I called today and was informed this PA’s name is Christine Busching, which I hope is correct. She was amazing and I will be eternally...