Karabots Pediatric Care Center

This practice has a very diverse clientele. I don’t know if the majority of their patients are rude, therefore they don’t value my time as a parent but I am ready to leave. Every time I need an appointment, prescription (monthly for my son) or school/​sports related paperwork it requires the same amount of time and effort as when you make a major purchase. I love our pediatrician but the operational habits of the Karabots center leave a lot to be desired.

I bring my children here, at one point I had nothing negative to say! I loved the amount of care that was shown to my children! The doctor who was there I absolutely LOVED! Dr Owusu! But she from my understanding left and went to the main campus. But recently the doctor whom my children has came in contact with I do not care for WHAT SO EVER. Dr Elliott. She seems as if she is upset when she speaks and when I bring up issues about she seems to not want to get specialist ref for my kids! Ex: my daughter has swallowing problems, where food gets stuck in her throat, I was told” keep a diary”. I asked about a letter for the nurse for my daughter to have her asthma med in school nurse office (my daughter has exercise induced asthma) an she gave me an extremely hard time, stating how infrequently she uses it, but yet in school this year my daughter is going out for track an basketball. There are MANY more issues with her as well! Like the other day my 2 children with chronic Illnesses where there with a resident she came in and said to me «your kids doc (the resident dr zheng) had to leave because she had a patient whom waited 2 hours to see her, because u and ur family arrived early! I told her that I live 20 miles from the office and need to take traffic into consideration and I would have been ok if she had me wait! And she said in a very unprofessional way I BET SHE WOULD HAVE MADE U WAIT. I ten said it was her choose to take us knowing that tree were 2 children with chronic illness. I really wish I could give them a 5 star but I can’t.

We had to dump these people, and here’s why. Most of their clientele is incredibly unreliable, so they decided to change the appointment policy to protect themselves from their crazy patients: they stopped scheduling appointments in advance. Instead, they would only schedule appointments *for the following day*.
So if I wanted to take my kid to the doctor for an annual checkup or whatever, I would get up at 8AM and start calling them. I would do this for ten or fifteen minutes until their phone system stopped telling me that they weren’t open yet. Then I would spend the next thirty or forty minutes on hold. Then I would finally talk to the appointments lady, who would tell me they were all booked up for the following day. «Try calling back tomorrow,» she would say. Then I’d get to start over again at 8 AM the next day.
That was bad, but then one day I did their stupid song and dance and finally got through to the appointments lady and this time she said «Oh, we changed our procedure. We’re doing advance appointments now. And we’re all booked up for the next six weeks.» Thanks, lady. If I’d known that I would have called six weeks ago.
That was the last straw. Now we go to CHOP Campus Primary Care, which is much better in every way.
(Another problem with Karabots is that many of the doctors come through on a three-​year pediatric residency, so your kid will see a doctor for a year or two and then that doctor will be gone and there will be a new doctor. If you like the doctor you get, too bad, because you will get someone new in a year or two. On the bright side, if you *don’t* like the doctor you get, you will only be stuck with her for two or three years!)
(One thing I did like about this practice is their 24-​hour night service. We could call in in the middle of the night and head back from an RN the same night. We did that a couple of times, and I was glad of it. It was especially useful the time my kid had croup. But the new practice has the same feature.)

When our daughter was born a little over two years ago, we started taking her to the CHOP’s pediatric center, which at the time was located on 39^th Street just off of Wallnut. We always liked the doctors there, but found the nurses to be hit or miss. Some were great, so not as great. Most of the ones that were not great were not the regulars, but fill ins.
When we learned they were moving to a new facility on Market and 48^th, we got real jazzed. Being only a few blocks away, and thus walking distance, was enough of a reason to be excited. It being a new facility was another reason.
They did not disappoint with the facility. It looks beautiful outside and in. The have lots of things to keep the kids busy while waiting, from toys, to computers, and even TVs streaming cartoons. Everything is so clean and sparkling new. I love it.
Interestingly, since the new facility opened, I have not encountered one of those less desirable nurses. Bonus!