Michael Pollak, MD

I’ve been a patient of Dr Pollak for almost 7 years. Overall I think they do a decent job. However my biggest concern is that there is almost always a long wait before an appointment. This week for instance, I arrived at my 6:30 pm appointment and there were 6 other people in the office. I wasn’t see by Dr Pollak until 7:15pm. That is a 45 minute wait! Unfortunately, I’ve had a similar experience almost every time I visit then office with an appointment. I understand that there may be last minute appointments by some patients but this is unacceptable. They need to stop over scheduling appointments and be more respectful of people’s time! Come on Dr Pollak… You can do better than this!

The Good: The staff is always very nice, helpful and courteous. The medical assistants do most of the work for this doctor and they do it well.
The Bad: This doctor’s office is pretty much a patient mill. They schedule back-​to-​back «appointments» 15 minutes a part and I’ve never waited less than an hour to see the doctor. If you do go see this doctor, I recommend getting there at least 1 or 2 hours before your scheduled appointment in order to get seen on time (or at least close to it).
The doctors excused a long wait time of up to 3 hours because they said there were a lot of «emergency» appointments they had to put ahead of mine. But the one time I had an emergency, they weren’t any quicker about it.
Now, once I actually got to see the doctor, he couldn’t have spent more than 5 or 10 minutes with me before waving me off to one of his helpful medical assistants. Both brothers’ attitudes are pretty flippant and dismissive.

I went to Dr Pollak with pains in my abdominal area, he looked up in his book to see what to prescribe. I ended up in the hospital the next day.
I went to Dr Pollak 2 weeks after getting out of the hospital for a follow up. He didn’t recall what happened and wasn’t sure how he could help, so he sent me to the hospital for more tests. I called him the next day to follow up on tests and he said I should go to the hospital due to my severe pain. I asked what severe pain he was talking about and told him to look at my file and take better notes. He then told me I know my body best and I should do what I feel is right. Wtf?!? He is clueless and I feel like I’ve risked my health with him. I will not go back.

First off, Dr Pollak and his staff are friendly, attentive, available, and most importantly, a team that helped me get healthy!
The first time i went to Dr Pollak I had just moved from the Upper West side in NYC and was looking for a doctor. I went to his office (which is fairly close to a ben and jerrys in hoboken) and showed up with a cup of ice cream that i was eating. I jokingly offered him some at the beginning of my physical and he obviously declined.
At the end of the physical (where it became clear that my 10+ hour a day stressful job, less than stellar diet, and social drinking had taken a toll) he very kindly, but sternly said, «i hope todays ice cream will be the last for a while because we have some work to do here»
From there on i had what i had needed all along. a medical «quarterback» of sorts. Dr. Pollak took the lead on pointing me in the direction of specialists and handled all of the standard medical issues that have come up along the way.
I can honestly say that the doc is one of the few medical professionals that actually seems to care and go the extra mile to get me to put down my ice cream and start focusing on my health.
i HIGHLY RECOMMEND him to anyone who is looking for someone who cares about their patients well being. From time to time he may not be the expert you need in a specific medical area (he had me go to a specialist for a few things) and in those cases he doesn’t fake it like some other doctors would, he will point you in the proper direction and be there for guidance and most importantly to follow up and make sure you are pointed down a healthy path.
The only thing i would say is make an appointment in advance if you can! Hoboken is a busy place and on any given day there could be 5 – 6 people in the waiting room that are there to be seen. With an appointment you get priority, which is nice!

I live in Hoboken, and Dr. Pollak has been my primary care physician for the past few years. I have had nothing but good experiences with him. For routine checkups everything has been fine, and when I’ve been sick, I’ve always been able to get an appointment on short notice, and get things diagnosed and treated properly. He’s a friendly, personable guy, and he has taken the time to get to know me on a personal level, which I find is rare these days. I switched to him in part because the last primary care physician I had was not at all like that. The staff is friendly and efficient, and everything else about the practice is fine. I plan on staying with him as my PCP for years to come.

These two brothers are strait up crooks.
I went swimming one day, came away with a plugged ear. I called the office and told them I needed to have wax removed from my right ear as I could hardly hear.
The wait was short and I was called back to Michael C Pollack’s office. He asked my problem and I told him I needed wax removed from my ear. He then proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions about other past medical problems that had nothing to do with the wax in my ear. I informed him that I was there last fall with the same problem and that I more or less just let it go as it was not that troublesome… only in the morning after waking up.
He then my blood pressure and looked into my ear. After looking at my ear he said that all I needed was some drops and then asked me if I was interested in a physical or if I needed any other examination. I said no… I am fine… I just need the wax from my ear removed.
A month later I got a breakdown from my insurance company which showed that he had charged of $ 600 dollars (including $ 125 for Behavior Changed Due to Smoking).
I was in the office for 15 minutes TOPS. This guy is a medical insurance crook! I am also sure his twin brother is in the same game.
I am reporting them.