Mark Schwabe, MD,

Great Doctor and person. Dr. Schwabe always makes me feel more than comfortable.

This last summer I was dealing with a lot of pelvic pain (due to my endometriosis, although I didn’t know it at the time) and I ended up in the emergency room. I was told in the ER, after many tests, that I had dark spots on my uterus and cysts on both of my ovaries. The emergency room wrote up a quick overview of what happened while I was there to take to my physician the next morning (since my records would not have been typed up and able to be sent over in less than 24 hours). My doctor then referred me to an OB/​GYN at Northern Valley Indian Health, Dr. Mark Schwabe. 4 weeks after my emergency room visit I finally had an appointment. I show up excited because I was finally meeting with someone who could hopefully stop the pain I was in; only to have that hope dashed within minutes of me talking to Dr. Scwhabe. He did not get any of my records from the emergency room, but only had the quick write up the ER had given me to give to my doctor about the tests I had undergone. In that write up they call my cysts «masses» (had he taken the time to get my ER records he would have seen the word «cyst» used many times), so he told me that he had no idea where I was getting this idea that I had cysts (because I apparently just made it up in my brain) and that, unless I wanted surgery I should just learn to live with the pain. I spent less then 15 minutes with him. I left the office in tears. Luckily the next day, still flabbergasted, I told my client the story (who I had no idea worked at Total Women’s Health in Paradise) and she got me in to see an amazing doctor (Dr. MeRa Chong) that week who took the time to find out what was going on, ordered more tests, and came up with a plan.
Now 3 ½ months later I get a bill Northern Valley Indian Health because they apparently don’t take my insurance AND nobody caught it at the time of the appointment. So to add injury to insult I am going to have to pay out of pocket (money I DO NOT have) for a physician who did nothing for me and treated me so callously that I left him in tears.