Patient First

Question #2: Wait time was not that bad. The Dr was busy giving personal and professional care to his patients. Yes, I waited a while but exemplary care given me was what I vision was given to patients before me.
Dr was thorough. When I have few questions implies the detail of his examination and instructions given.
Thank you.

I only have good things lately to say about Patient First. The wait times have been low and the doctors were very professional.

Hands down — This place is AWESOME. GREAT service and the doctors have always treated us VERY well. In fact, one of the doctors saved my husband’s life. I cannot say enough good about this particular health care facility!

I wish I could give this place no stars. I spent 3 hrs here while they ran tests. The Dr then told me he thought I needed emergency surgery and was sending me to the ER. He did nothing but scare me so bad I cried and was shaking all the way to the ER. After 2 ½ hrs later, all kinds of test and almost $ 2000 out of pocket I was told I have a UTI and a cyst. All of this could have been accomplished by a simple X-​ray at patients first. Don’t waste your time or money there are other urgent care facilities in the area.

The place is a train wreck. Expect wait times of over 3 hours. They seem to be typically understaffed in regards the physicians. In addition, other than one time with Dr. Keegan and another with Dr. Laney, the services rendered have been subpar to a standard office visit at other places. So I would advise checking whether Dr. Keegan is in, Dr. Laney typically works in another office.
The positive? They are open when others offices are not, they have more diagnostic equipment than some offices, and their support staff (nurses and aids) are very nice and work quickly.
Bottom line — expect to wait, and wait a while.

Slow, unprofessional, inefficient.
Every time I go they prescribe me the wrong drugs, make me wait forever and charge me a copay for follow ups.
Bad customer service, bad bed side manner, bad experience all together
Stay away if you care about your health.

I would rather perish than deal with the billing aftermath of this disastrous place.
I visited in November of 2013. Today, in June of 2014, I finally sit with a (sort-​of) accurate bill, and finally one without unwarranted threats printed on it.
You see, I have a PPO plan. I’m an old-​fashioned girl who likes to pay everything upfront and leave little surprise on the back end. So imagine my surprise when I visit in November, provide my new insurance card for the calendar year (as is customary), and spend the standard 2 hours being coughed on by other sick people, only to get a bill for the whole amount of my visit. It’s so long ago now, but I believe it was $ 700-​something…
I call my insurance company to find out a claim was never filed against my insurance, so I call Patient First (from here on out, PF), and they tell me they have my old plan on record. This is confusing (given my production of new card at visit), but ok… I provide the right plan number, again.
Some weeks pass, and I get a new bill… For the whole amount, AGAIN. With panties in a knot, I call again and provide the correct insurance info for a THIRD time. And, lo and behold… I get another bill. The next one has a threat on it, that «you and your family will no longer be treated here»… You think?
Let me add, at this point, the girl sitting next to me at work, as well as another coworker in the same office, are commiserating. Yes, 3 of us in the same office… Same story! One girl just paid it because she doesn’t have the same penchant for beating a dead horse as I have, apparently…
Eventually I get my insurance company involved. As it turns out, regardless of how many times I provide new insurance info, PF keeps billing the old plan. Their «clearing house» is not working. Seriously. You’d think by this time, they would be keeping an eye on the account to make sure things are resolved, but alas, they do not.
Finally, months and months later, they finally bill the right plan, with the help of my insurance company calling as well, and a hundred phone calls from me. So now we are good, right? Wrong!!!
Get a new bill… With all the prescriptions billed to me in full, almost $ 200. Right about now, I can’t deal. I write an email to the girl helping me, commending her for her service and urging a supervisor to call me for input, so this chronic, billing disaster can be cured. She ignores my offer.
Somehow, PF can’t figure out a patient’s insurance on all fronts. You have to call every department in billing to divulge your insurance. Diagnostics, doctors and meds can’t figure out that your single organism-​self had a single-​organism health insurance.
I will never, ever, ever go here again.
**** Update****
My various offers to speak to a supervisor during this ordeal were all declined. Until I wrote this review. Now someone is very much interested in speaking with me.

I brought my son here because he was having trouble breathing and we had just moved here from Phoenix. We didn’t have a primary care provider yet, and I hadn’t gotten insurance set up through my new work yet. The wait wasn’t to bad, I came around 6 in the evening and was in the waiting room for about 10 minutes.
The office was very clean, we didn’t have a private room, just a curtain like an ER.
When the doctor came in, she was very nice. She explained some of the testing she was going to do, and after doing so, recommended I go down the street to the KidMed because they had better equipment to give him the breathing treatment he needs.
She was understanding when I explained I wouldn’t be able to afford paying for two urgent care visits without insurance, and explained that since they didn’t do the treatments there, she wouldn’t charge me. Nice!
I was so relieved. So I carried my coughing boy out to the car. As I was putting him in his seat, the lady at the front desk chased me down telling me I had to pay… Like I was a thief or something. I told her the doctor told me I didn’t have to pay because they didn’t do anything, and I was headed to the KidMed. She looked like she thought I was lying … But went back inside.

Been waiting 1.5 hours. Still waiting in exam room to see doctor. Worst location ever. Go to parham.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER AGAIN!!! I echo every bad review on this site and wish there was a zero star option. I have been here couple times but last night was the last straw. In the middle of the major snow storm my 18 month old was reeling from an ear infection and needed antibiotics. I usually go to Apex Med in Twin Hickory because they are delightful and kind, especially to my kids, but they were closed so I came to Patient First in Short Pump.
The place was pretty much empty at 6:00pm, save for about 2 adults who did not appear to be suffering from anything serious, not even sniffling. I came in with a screaming 18 month old and I had to wait for 1 ½ hours! In that time, my child screamed his head off and writhed in my arms, kicking and shrieking — in the waiting room, in the patient room. Everyone could hear this from behind our little curtain and not once in that total time did a nurse ask if we were okay, if they could help, or give me any sense for how much longer we would be waiting. In fact, they just gave me looks and were incredibly rude to me as time dragged on and my exhausted and sick child continued to scream his head off. I finally had to pull the curtain back and demand that we be seen asap, and they looked at me like I hadn’t been there for an hour with a screaming child. By the time the doctor came in, I was in tears and he treated me like a simpleton, as though I couldn’t possibly understand my own child’s health issue or health history and made the whole process of sticking an odoscope into a screaming baby’s ears so much harder than it needed to be, reprimanding me for how I instructed him it needed to be done — my kid gets frequent ear infections, I know how to hold my own child for evaluation! The nurse even had the audacity to lob an incredibly rude comment at me for needing my prescription asap.
By the time I was prescribed and released, I was in uncontrollable sobs, and I am a pretty stone cold person for public emotions; mascara pouring down my face with a still screaming child that I could hardly hold onto with our coats, purses and the basket of medicine stuff the doctor had shoved into my hand to carry on my own to check out. As I went to check out, the receptionist actually had to gall to ask me to «go over there, sit down and wait» for him to be ready! NEVER EVER AGAIN! I will go to the ER before I visit this location again!

This is a busy location, I went by there 830 in the morning on a Saturday and wasn’t seen until 10 am… The nurses and Doctor were all great, very friendly and helpful. My only complaint was it was freezing in the room. I mean teeth chattering cold. I wish I had known I could have asked for a heated blanket,
The best part about going there is if you need your meds you can get them for $ 10 on site.

Since I’m still new to Richmond and haven’t found a GP yet this seemed to be the best option. I’ve made a grand total of four visits to this location to get treated for two different issues that cropped up last month. Overall I came away quite satisfied and can’t say the experience was much different from any conventional doctor’s practice I’ve visited in the past. I did tend to arrive within 30 minutes of when they opened to avoid lines and waits but I also got here once in the late morning and the wait time wasn’t bad at all then.
The check-​in experience is fairly efficient and straightforward. You fill out some basic info on a kiosk and then they call your name to sit down with a staff member and verify name /​address, insurance info, payment method, etc. This whole process never took more than 20 minutes, whether I arrived first thing when they opened or in the middle of the day.
An orderly will take your vitals and lead you to one of the exam rooms. In each case the wait here was anywhere from 15 — 20 minutes to be seen by the doctor.
My initial complaint was swelling, redness and pain in my left elbow. The doctor immediately identified it as cellulitis and had blood drawn to check my cell counts. Since they have a lab on premises, the results came back within 10 minutes. My white blood cell count was very high so they gave me two shots of a strong antibiotic in my hips and a prescription for two oral antibiotics to begin later that day. She also advised me to take some probiotics (like Activia yogurt) to avoid secondary infection in my gastrointestintal tract. They also took a bunch of x-​rays to make sure I hadn’t hurt my elbow and to ensure the infection hadn’t spread into the joint itself. They all came back negative. The doctor was very understanding and I didn’t feel rushed at all. She recommended I come back the next day so they could make sure the infection was being managed well.
I ended up coming back the next day AND the day after that since the infection was progressing a little on the slower side. Each day I got a couple more shots of antibiotics and a reminder to come back if at any point it started to swell more or spread. On the fourth day I noticed a pretty solid improvement and by the time I finished my oral antibiotics ten days later I was pretty much back normal.
I ended up coming back a week later after coming down with a really nasty bit of congestion, headache and cough. Same deal — quick check-​in, basic vitals, short wait in the exam room — and the doctor checked my ears, listened to me breathe and cough and concluded it was an «upper respiratory tract infection.» She ended up giving me a prescription for a different five day antibiotic. After about the fourth day my symptoms improved significantly and although I had a mild cough continue for about another week it was totally manageable.
So I can’t really complain about my experiences here. All of the staff were warm, friendly and very sympathetic. I asked each of the doctors a few questions and they were patient and provided good answers. Also having the pharmacy on-​site was convenient — in every case they had my prescriptions filled immediately and handed to me before I even left the exam room. I honestly didn’t expect the experience to be nearly as good as it was. It’s a big operation and they see a lot of patients but they still make you feel like a human being.

No sense of urgency, reprimanding doctor, and understaffed physicians.
Guarantee yourself an hour to two hours to be seen.
The most important thing here is logging patient information on computers — there’s around 10 staff members doing this.
Just another reminder of how crummy US healthcare has gotten.

I was told it would be 45 min to an hour. 2 ½ hours later I was finally seen for a total of 2 minutes. Go to the emergency room if u want good care. This place is awful. This is the 2^nd time I have been and will never waste another 50.00 co-​pay again

I have gone here three times. It is easy in that there is no appointment needed and is open until 10:00pm. But I always have to wait 1 – 2 hours in a room waiting for a doctor, and 90% of the time they tell me to see a specialist for silly little complaints. I always leave here thinking I’ve wasted my time. Always have better results waiting for a real doctor.

I moved here from CT a few months ago and back home the idea of going to a walk in place is just about as frightening as it gets. But, I don’t have a primary care Dr here yet and I was expereiencing some of the most horrible lower back pain so I decided to go for it. I arrived at Patient First at 5:05 and since I’d never been there before I had to go through new patient registration. As soon as I was completed with that the nurse called me in to do height, weight, urine sample, blood pressure, all that good stuff. As soon as I was completed with that an x ray tech came and got me to do about 10 x rays on my back. As soon as that was finished the PA came in to see me. They took the time to make sure there was nothing wrong with my kidneys or anything else before chalking it up to basic back pain. Well everything came back fine, I received a prescription to help with inflammation and a pain presription as well. The PA gave me the name and number of a back specialist in case it still hurt after a week and gave me a set of my x-​rays so I didn’t have to take another trip back. They filled my prescriptions right there. In my car with the keys in the ignition at 6;10!!! Amazing!