UH St. John Medical Center — Local services in Westlake

This is the worse hospital I think I have ever experienced. To give some backstory, I went in on July 27th to meet with my surgeon, Sonia Voiculescu to discuss having a surgery done. We decided to go ahead with the surgery and scheduled it for August 16th.

Fast forward to August 10th. Had to get approval to get off work for a week. Finally got the ok this week and I’m missing a week of work which is what it is as I do need to have the surgery done. Schedule is posted and adjusted for it. However, I get a phone call from the hospital stating there is an issue with my insurance and they haven’t responded back. I thought that was kind of weird as it was put in on July 27th. Called up my insurance, and come to find out the hospital never even contacted my insurance as it is. They literally just put in for the approval when they told me they haven’t heard back my insurance. It took them TWO weeks to let my insurance know. This was not an insurance issue even though University Hospitals tried to blame them. It should not take 14 days to put this in to my insurance.

On Friday, August 11th UH told me they’d let me know asap what was going on. Then they told me the same thing on August 14th. Except on the 14th the lady I spoke to from UH named Jamie said I’d get a call first thing in the morning Tuesday, the 15th. Come 1pm I call and get told to leave a message and I’d get a call back. Now it’s just about 2pm and I still don’t know what’s going on for a surgery that is scheduled for tomorrow. Not to mention I’m off work this entire week for a surgery that was scheduled almost three weeks ago.

Now I am out a full week of pay, probably no surgery at this rate, and they have offered no solution after they are the ones to mess up.

Stay far away from this place. Unless maybe you schedule a surgery six months out. Hopefully they can inform your insurance in that long of a time frame.

I would like to add that I do not blame Sonia by any means as she was extremely friendly and helpful when I first went in for my appointment. Jamie also seemed to be trying her best to get this fixed. This is an issue with UH and their lack of submitting these claims in a very poor fashion. Sorry it just doesn’t take fourteen days to submit paperwork to an insurance company. Very incompetent employees.

**Edit: I just contacted my insurance again, and they aren’t even aware of this surgery tomorrow. This is the 4th time I’ve contacted my insurance in the past few days. Apparently there was no submission of it ever until today. They submitted my surgery claim with less than 24 hours before the procedure. The entire UH staff I have spoken to thus far has lied about everything. I have called around 20 different numbers for UH...

Birthing Experience was awful!!

I had extremely high hopes for my UH birthing experience. I met with some great doctors beforehand whom I loved and I felt were very transparent with me. My induction date arrived and we got prepared to go to the hospital then we were pushed back a day because they were understaffed. That’s fine, I’d rather have staff than be left alone waiting in pain bc someone else needed attention- so off we went, back home in preparation for the next day. Got there the next day and it was wonderful. I felt like the nurses were so involved and each doctor that we met was incredible. Ended up having a C-section; the doctor was so knowledgeable and so so sweet. We absolutely loved her and I have nothing but great things to say regarding her care. Well, once we gave birth and the doctors switched, it’s like all our care stopped. We had to stay five days in total- on day 3 or 4 we got pushed to the tiniest room that resembled a closet. No one came to check on us. I asked for a lactation consultant to visit us every. Single. Day. and no one did. They explained that the nurses were trained to educate the patients on breastfeeding, yet none of them checked to ensure my baby latched properly. They never showed me how to use my breast pump. They assumed my baby was getting enough food even though I wasn’t producing like anything. My baby was 10 pounds so she needed more than the average baby and I had no idea. She was constantly crying, and wouldn’t settle down for anything. As a brand new mom on all the c-section meds- I didn’t know that my newborn just needed more food. The nursing staff should have known to give us more, too. Which they probably would have if they spent more time with us post-birth!! My newborn was STARVING until we got home and decided to just bite the bullet and give her formula. SHE ATE 4oz IN ONE SITTING. I can’t even think about my birthing experience too much bc I have so much guilt and PTSD that it makes me sob. My poor baby was starving for 5 days because they dropped the ball. I tried to explain this to my OB at my 6 week follow up and they just made excuses for everyone. Oh, and the staff kept coming into our room to take our supplies…like, why wasn’t inventory up to date? Awful experience. If you have the opportunity to go elsewhere, go elsewhere.

Oh, the kicker is, I made a whole birthing experience anxiety checklist as my doctor advised- and the number one thing on it was fear that I wouldn’t be heard, and also fear that I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed. Oh, and because I never learned how to properly breastfeed, my milk dried up so that...

I have had way too many unpleasant experiences in this hospital as it is one of the only close hospitals in proximity to where I live. When I had an allergic reaction to an antibiotic, the ER doctor (Dr. Jason Gagola) was rude to me the entire time I was in the emergency room. My lips and throat were very swollen and at the time I had no idea what caused the reaction as I have never had a reaction to any type of medicine before. Instead of being even slightly nice he flat out told me that I wasted his time by being in the ER because it was not a "life-threatening" reaction. He rolled his eyes at me multiple times and scolded me after I told him I was still having difficulty breathing after being given my initial dose of benadryl. I haven't used this ER since. I just take my chances and drive to Southwest General (Even once with a broken finger). I have unfortunately had to have 3 surgeries in this facility with each proceeding experience being less pleasant than before. One of the times a nurse in recovery lied to me and told me that my mother instructed her to not let my husband (who was my fiance' at the time) see me in recovery. I only found out this was a lie after crying for well over half an hour and begging her to let me call my mother as she had to leave for a short period of time during my surgery to take care of a few things. Once I had my mother on the phone I asked her if she had told the nurse not to let him back, my mother quickly confirmed that she definitely did NOT say this while the nurse was in the room with me. Before I could hang up the phone she was paging the waiting area receptionist to tell him to come back. After the most recent surgery I know that I will NOT be having another here. They pushed for me to leave outpatient even though I kept saying that my pain was intolerable. I was discharged after only being in recovery for about 45 minutes. My pain was so unbearable later that night after my nerve blocker wore off that I was sobbing uncontrollably. My father had to call the doctor on his personal cell phone at 12 AM when he couldn't stand hearing me cry anymore. I was unable to remedy my pain until 10 am the next day when he met us at his office even though it was closed. Calling this place a hospital is a joke when there is not hospitality behind it. This is only the tip of the ice burg of the experiences I have endured here. I avoid this place like...