UC San Diego Health System La Jolla Family & Sports Medicine

First, this office does not call to remind you of your appointment so you better write it down or mark it in you phone/​calendar. They will not accommodate you if you’re late. Me being late is my fault and I totally understand and accept that. Second, the front desk staff, dark haired guy, is miserable in his job and takes it out on the patients. After rescheduling my appointment, with considerable attitude, I asked to fill out the usual forms so I didn’t have to do it when I came back in two days. Again, total attitude, basically threw the papers at me and I had to ask for clipboard and pen to write on/​with. Then when I’m done filling out the forms, he refuses to take the forms and tells me I have to give them to the nurse that I end up seeing several days from today. The Doctors may be good, though I haven’t even gotten to see one yet, but the front desk staff are miserable. Good luck with them if you decide on this Doctor’s Office.

The doctor seems good, if they weren’t rushed.
I had an appointment to review my immunization record and have a TB screening, to have a form signed. I was told I would be contacted in 2 – 3 days when the test results came in, letting me know that I can pick up my form.
It has now been two weeks since that appointment. I was not contacted by anyone from the office. I have called the office three times, each time put on hold for a long time with obnoxious hold music. The office seems to have lost my form and forgotten why I had the appointment in the first place, and every time I call I am unable to reach the nurse that helped me during my appointment and told that I can leave a message. I need this form within 2 business days at the LATEST to be able to begin my clinical observation. I sincerely hope that this will be figured out by then.
I am definitely not returning to this office in the future.

They have a lot of different doctors, so if your doctor is not available, you can always ask to see someone else! I feel like their nurses and doctors are mostly very professional! Some of the receptionists hates to be there, but it’s not that big of a deal, you see that everywhere for any jobs! You have to pay for their parking! Ask the receptionist for discounted parking! Sometimes it will cover the whole fee, but most of the time will only cover like $ 1! :S Try to be there 20 – 30 minutes before your appointment to find street parking outside or across the street! They don’t do walk-in’s and they are kind of difficult when it comes to medical insurance!

I love my doctor and the nurses are great, but the wait times are ridiculous. I have had to wait an hour and a half before! Not to mention that getting an appointment is super difficult as well. There are too many doctors and the secretaries are useless and rude.

Made appointment just for a common prescription renewal because they refused to renew on request of the pharmacy. 45min wait without any notification prior to appointment. I asked if i can call ahead next time to see if there is a delay and receptionist told me that it is the doctor’s discretion. Paying for parking lot time because someone else couldn’t keep a schedule. Also found out that 15 min late appointments are acceptable, but the person who does the scheduling has appointments back to back. May switch provider due to this and other reasons.

Bring a lot of reading material and entertainment and be prepared to wait for 1 – 2 hours to see the Doctor.

I arrived about 10 minutes early and ended up waiting about 30 minutes past my appointment time. I was finally seen by Dr Achar for a routine physical and initially he seemed thorough and concerned. After I discussed some issues I was having he decided that I was too young to have so many issues and that he thought it was just anxiety. I don’t have major health issues, just a lot of small, mostly annoying, problems, but they have all been diagnosed by medical professionals and he maybe me feel like I was just a hypochondriac. I was also having some neck pain that he was very dismissive about. I had to force him to take some concern. A few days later I saw an ENT and he immediately recognized that I had a very swollen salivary gland. I had high hopes for this place but I won’t be going back.

I’m here to see my doctor right now. I called ahead and they told me he was on time. So far he is 25 minutes late and they are telling me it is going to be at least another 15 minutes. So 40 minutes late. I cannot believe I am going to miss so much work. I will not be back.
Last year when I came, I needed to have a form filled out. The doctor filled it out wrong and I called to have it fixed. It took me 6 weeks of endless phone calls and faxes to get the form corrected.
I’ve also messaged them through the mychart UCSD website twice. The first time, they didn’t even respond.
This office just can’t seem to do anything right.

I’m a new cash patient, no insurance. Needed a physical. At the time I made the appointment I asked for and confirmed the price which was $ 135.00 not counting labs.
Got to my appointment and was informed that the $ 135.00 was just a deposit, that had to be paid first, before you could see the doctor. I asked what the cost of my visit would be and she said «i have no idea, depends on what the doctor decides»
I said thank you and I left. I won’t be back

Beware they will double bill you for their services. $ 30 co pay really = $ 60 co pay at the end of the day.

Zero! Never ever come to this place again. Horrible frontdesk and complete bad attitude.

Zero! Never ever come to this place, there is not worse. I’ve never been so humiliated and disrespected in all my life .
Zero! Nunca venha a esse lugar, não existe pior. Eu nunca fui tão humilhada e desrespeitada em toda minha vida.

I rarely write a bad review, however the experience I’ve had in the past week washorrible.
Background: I recently changed health insurance plans and had to select a new Primary Care Physician (PCP). I looked online and found that UCSD La Jolla Family & Sports Medicine was just 0.6 miles from my office… how convenient. I selected an available doctor that was accepting new patients and set the 1^st available appointment…2 months away.
Last Week’s Experience: I arrived last week to my doctor’s appointment and was less than 10 minutes late (traffic). I was told that I had to wait and see if the next person would be a «no show» or cancel if I wanted to be seen. I was also given the opportunity to reschedule. I decided to wait to see if I could be seen… waited for nearly an hour. I went up to the receptionist to ask if the person showed and she said yes… should would have let me sit there for hours if I didn’t go up and ask. At that point, I read the Unilocal reviews and wished that I never selected this office. Hesitantly, I rescheduled for the next week with a different doctor… as he had someone cancel.
Today’s Experience: I arrived 30 minutes EARLY so they couldn’t reschedule me for another reason. I waited for 40 minutes (10 min after my schedule appointment time) to be called back by a nurse to tell me the doctor is running late and then I sat back down in the lobby. The nurse called me back again to tell me that I shouldn’t schedule anything before or after a doctor’s appointment… HUH…mind you/​me I scheduled 2 hours (30 min early and 90 min for doc appointment) to be at the doctor’s office. Are you telling me that I have to take 4 hours off work or an entire day to be able to be seen? How is it fair that if a patient is late, they automatically get rescheduled… however if a doctor is late, you have to reschedule.
Result: I will never schedule or recommend this office to anyone. I will also be changing my PCP later today.

I presume people only comment here when they have a problem with this office. It doesn’t deserve such a low rating. The doctors here are fantastic — especially Dr. Slater. The office staff are courteous and helpful. It can take a while to get a routine appointment, but whenever I’ve needed something urgent, they have been able to fit me in. The doctors always take their time to diagnose you properly. I’ve never had any issues with billing. Highly recommended!

I still love my doctor (see previous review) but I wonder if she’s helping or enabling. The receptionist staff is terrible, the worst parts of my days revolve around either trying to get an appointment or a refil. I simply make one be fore I leave now, even if I’m not sick. This way I’m covered since it takes nearly 8 weeks to get seen. If you are sick, you had better go to the urgent care. I wish my doctor would move somewhere else. Oh– and try going down the hall to get your bloodwork done or urine sample. They send you to a different waiting room now with a desk but NO STAFF! I kid you not. Tisk tisk, la jolla family and sports medicine. We deserve better.

Be prepared to wait if you are going in the mornings. I’ve been here 4 times and each time my appointment started 30 minutes later than planned

If there is one doctor’s office I would not recommend, it would most definitely have to be this branch of UCSD Healthcare on Genesee Ave.
Prior to making this my primary physician’s office, I had been a student at UCSD and received very decent healthcare services via my student health insurance at the on-​campus student clinic. I was thus fooled into thinking this UCSD family and sports medicine location open to the public would provide a similar level of services, which it, unfortunately, did not.
My first surprise were the ridiculously long wait times — more than 30 minutes on occasion — upon arrival for a scheduled appointment to be seen by a doctor. The patients, however, are required to reschedule if they are more than a few minutes late. Issues with scheduling (often no appointment times are available for several days when you call in sick) and getting the reception desk staff and nurses to call me back came next. Finally, the professional quality of the doctors themselves tends to vary as some are very knowledgeable and caring while others seem to just want to get you out the door with a list of unnecessary prescriptions.
Don’t even bother if you have a non-​PPO insurance plan as services performed here will not be covered; and if you do have PPO, be sure to extend your phone plan’s monthly minutes and gear up to make a few calls to your insurance company.
Needless to say, I am no longer a patient.

Horrible front desk. Complete bad attitudes and Dr. Osborne is a sexist doctor. Said something to my fiancé, «women, they think they’re always right. Can’t win with them!» I am not coming back here!

Wow! I’m shocked of what just happened to me. Went here on Friday (4 days ago) with acute cough. The doctor said it wasn’t anything major and gave me a prescription for cough syrup and and inhaler to alleviate the cough. Said that if symptoms were not better after 2 – 3 weeks to come back. During the weekend the cough got worse and started having fever. I called on Monday to see if they could see me since the symptons had gotten worse and I now had a fever. Nurse called 4 hrs later to say that there wasn’t anything available and that she was going to check with the Doctor for further guidance. I had to call again after 3 hrs and no response was given to me other than «the doctor is going to call you». Is Tuesday now, so I called back and the nurse said: «oh yes, there is a note from the Doctor saying he got a busy signal and that you should go to the Emergency room»… Seriously? Is this how you treat your patients? If you’re telling me to go to the Emergency room, you should at least try indeed to contact me and let me know…
Totally disgusted!!! Will never go back here!

Wow, I’m surprised to read the bad reviews!
I’ve been going here for about 10 years, maybe more. Dr. Suraj Achar is my primary care, and he’s great. He always takes his time, never makes me feel rushed, asks lots of questions, etc.
When I’ve needed to see someone right away, I’ve always been happy with the person I see. For example, I threw my back out about 3 weeks ago. I saw Chad Osborne, and I thought he was great. First a student came in to check out my back, then he came back in with Dr. Osborne. I’m following the instructions they gave, and my back is improving.
Parking is easy, which is a big plus. Scheduling is also quite easy.
In the past couple of years, the longest I’ve waited was maybe 10 minutes past my appointment time.