SOMA Orthopedics

In my opinion Moshe Lewis MD is a hired puppet for the insurance companies! The MD stands for the «many dollars» that Mr. Lewis (I refuse to use «Dr.» He does not deserve the respect!) has deposited in his bank account from insurance companies for screwing over people with legitimate disabling conditions including myself!
Mr. Lewis was hired by my long term disability (ltd) insurance administrator Blue Cross Blue Shield Association/​NEBA to perform a peer review of my medical record for my appeal of my denied LTD benefits. I recently received a letter from BCBSA/​NEBA indicating my LTD benefits are still denied!
I have been awarded Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) through the Social Security Administration with the same medical documentation, deemed permanently disabled by my own physician as well as through a functional capacity exam yet, Mr. Lewis’s peer review opinion is that I have no disabling impairments! This man never spoke with me nor examined me in person regarding any of my medical conditions before rendering his obvious financially biased self serving opinion!
Mr. Lewis you are choosing money over your hippocratic oath and the health and welfare of the disabled! I find you a despicable human being!

Dr. Atkin has a full office of warm friendly and professional staff. They are always kind on the phone and call with reminders for appointments. I recovered for my shoulder and he clearly offered for me to call with any questions throughout the whole experience. His office is easy to get to and street and building parking is available. His hours are fantastic for those of us who work. He is kind and engaging. I appreciate that he mentors medical students and were part of all my visits. Stick with doctors who give back with a smile!

Dr. Lewis Is a quack! He doesn’t believe in alternative pain meds, so if he can’t prescribe dope to you… he’ll send you packing w/​MRI slip n a bad taste in ur mouth.. I missed out on my claim and ended up making my back worse. Feel bad for the people there who try.

I’m rating Vanessa, the receptionist, because this is the first time in my 50 years of life that I am considering leaving this practice if I can’t find a way to not work with her ever. I have never been treated so disrespectfully. She is rude, condescending, argumentative, curt, narrow minded and doesn’t know how to communicate effectively. I have never had an experience with her when she’s been compassionate or caring. Her communication lacks tact. She is abusive and not interested in or capable of giving good customer service. This is not how to treat patients at a doctor’s office.

Dr. Dave Atkin is one of the best doctors I’ve ever seen. He is incredibly thorough and makes sure that he has all the data needed to make a diagnosis — including ordering tests (MRIs), performing the most complete range of motion/​strength tests I’ve ever had done, and looking at my muscles and tendons during the appointment via sonography.
Dr. Atkin is the opposite of the stereotypical doctor trying to rush you out of the office as soon as possible — I really felt listened to and that he wanted me to have as much information as possible to make an informed decision.
He even gives out his personal email address to each patient, «just in case you have any questions or something changes.» What doctor in this day and age gives out their personal email address? He’s really a cut above.
When I did email with a question, he CALLED me back! He wanted to make sure that when he answered my question that he could explain any follow-​ups ones generated.
Thanks Dr. Atkin, you rock!

Just got out of a follow-​up appointment with Dave Atkin, and wanted to join the chorus of patients who think he’s terrific. He’s very patient, takes time to understand your particular situation and offers interventions based on listening to your needs and constraints. After my consultation he said, «Look, if you have any problems or worries, just call – we’ll find a way to get you in. Email me if anything comes up.»
Just a very stand up guy who seems to have his patients best interests at heart.

Disappointing experience given all the great reviews.
I recently had a consultation with Dr. Atkin. He seemed largely disinterested in my issue and seemed to rely more on the diagnosis provided to him by his students than assessing my ailment himself. Throughout our appt he appeared more focused on teaching them than treating me and I don’t feel I received good service at all. My disappointing experience sadly extends to the billing dept — I was told the brace I was fitted with would be $ 25 only to find a charge for almost double that.
All rather unfortunate, I’m hoping I have a better experience elsewhere.

Dr. Dave Atkin is the best Orthopedic dude I have ever met. Not that I have met a lot of them but I went to see him after all the glowing reviews and he deserves every ounce of praise.
I had chronic pain in my shoulder and after figuring out what was wrong he explained to me my options and what it all meant. He didn’t rush me or push me into anything and has the most amazing bedside manner!
I seriously can’t even begin to praise this man enough for all of his kindness and extraordinary talent. He even held my hand on numerous occasions when being given injections etc. WHO DOES THAT?! Dave does. :)
But the proof is in the pudding (or something like that) and I’ll say my shoulder is way better then it ever was and I feel like a whole new person again. Hello Yoga, hello painting, hello surfing, yes hello to my right arm being able to do everything again.
Thank you Dr. Atkin. Thank you.

Drs. Lewis and Palma are two of the most unethical physicians in California, hands-​down.
Lewis and Palma keep their Workers Compensation patients off of work interminably and proceed to ply them with drugs and injections.
Then they run around and proceed to deny care for other Workers Compensation claimants through CID Management and other avenues.
How unethical can you get!
So Palma and Lewis think it’s okay to treat their own Work Comp patients without regard to disability duration or medical treatment guidelines and then go on to sign reports written by CID’s report factory to deny care to other people’s Work Comp patients. Unbelievable!

i have some pretty horrific knee injuries under my belt, and many doctors and office visits to accompany them. i switched insurance right before my most recent injury and was recommended to dr. akin through my new gp. having had the same orthopedic surgeon for the past 10 years prior, i was nervous to embark on this adventure with someone new.
turns out, dave is THE MAN. his bedside manner was incredible, he addressed all my concerns, and, most importantly, treated me as an individual. i truly feel like he cared about my well being and prognosis, and worked with me to understand my needs and priorities and make appropriate recommendations. his office staff was incredibly helpful and actually went above and beyond to push some paperwork through and get me approval for surgery super fast (i was losing my insurance at the end of the month). on top of all that, the surgery he performed was top notch. he even took the time to cosmetically clean up some of my old scars and investigate work from a previous surgery to make sure everything was in shape.
i had such an exceptional experience that i felt compelled to add to his other glowing reviews, despite the fact that my surgery was over a year and a half ago at this point. bottom line: i’m no stranger when it comes to orthopedics, and i cannot recommend dr. akin highly enough — amazing bedside manner, amazing surgeon, amazing guy.

Dr. Dave is the absolute best.
I’m a climber/​cyclist, and have busted my Achilles, shoulder and neck in the last couple years (all of which were fairly debilitating) and so for better or worse, I’ve effectively had Dr. Dave on speed-​dial over this time.
I’ve seen Dr. Ma at UCSF and other highly regarding orthopedists in both the UCSF and CPMC networks, but I keep going back to Dr. Dave because I like his holistic approach, and his no-​nonsense manner. He will only recommend surgery as a last resort, and he is absolutely candid and honest.
I cannot recommend him more highly.

This office has the worst patient follow up service I have ever experienced. I hope dr. Lewis will read this post and do something about it. I have been waiting over a month to get a threatment scheduled and so far not even a call to tell me why is taking so long. I left several messages and so far no one has call me. Something that they are really good at is to send you the invoices on time… I will be formally send a complain to the Medical Board of California for delay on threatment.

I have no problems with Dr Atkin personally or his diagnosis of my knee. However I am angered with the office’s incompetence in quoting me $ 409 for an x-​ray that turned out to be $ 1331 for two X-​rays once the bill came through. Apparently they gave the wrong information over the phone to get the quote. I feel cheated and I think it is disgusting to charge over 3x what I am told it will cost! I will never set foot inside this clinic again.

Dr. Dave Atkin performed surgery on my hip fracture (Spring, 2012), and I couldn’t have been happier. From the moment I met him he was thoughtful, engaged and unhurried, encouraging me to correspond even after leaving the state of California — «your doctor for life.» He went out of his way to make clear that he understood this was routine for him, but not for me.
And he’s not just just caring and a humanitarian (read the other reviews). This was my first surgery but by all accounts he does great work, as his experience and credentials (including years of work with professional athletes) would lead you to believe. My bone healed quickly, there were no complications, and my physical therapist said «wow, that’s a clean incision.»
His advice to me throughout therapy and the healing process: «Do everything you can to do this right. No matter what happens, you’ll want to know you tried your hardest.» He must live by those words.
Thank you Dr. Atkin!

UPDATE: The service has improved recently since the ousting of perma-​scowl, holier-​than-​thou Laura and the addition of real service professionals who understand HOW to be professional and respectful. X, however, remains chilly to me, despite my warmth.
BUT, messages are still not returned within 24 hours, despite the machine stating as such. Given that I must see the doctor every 4 weeks and that this business is making thousands off me, they should keep the clients happy.
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Hands down the rudest, most condescending, incompetent front-​desk staff EVER. X and Y are unbearable. And your reports will be full of errors and they will not return your calls until days later – despite their answering machine stating that your call will be returned within 24 hours. They don’t respond to the words URGENT or ASAP or EMERGENCY when you need to get in touch with a doctor. In fact, I have NEVER ONCE heard from a doctor when I’ve requested it. I even tried to make an appt with a doctor because I couldn’t get a call from him and had several medical questions. X wouldn’t let me make one.
Once I was there and an old lady who’d been waiting a while asked if the doctor knew she was there. X said, «THE WHOLE OFFICE KNOWS YOU’RE HERE! SIT DOWN.» Karma bit her when a short time later, a patient on the phone cussed her out.
This is a sensitive SERVICE industry and if you can’t even pretend to somewhat care about people in pain, go be a collections agent or a parking ticketer.

Dr. Lewis seemed to be okay, though his exam seemed perfunctory at best. The follow-​up exam with a med student was more thorough and informative. The referral for physical therapy to Chiro-​Medical group was great and the physical therapy was really what I needed.
The two stars are for the $ 801.42 I was charged by CPMC/​St. Luke’s for a simple knee X-​ray. When I asked for SOMA Ortho’s assistance in trying to find out why the price was so insanely high, they were of no help whatsoever. Even folks who work in other hospitals have tried to help me get to the bottom of the CPMC mess, but SOMA ortho could care less. If you have some cadillac insurance plan, enjoy them. I am going to go elsewhere.
Dear Doctors — No matter how «good» you may be at your specialty, if your front office and billing people are inattentive, I will find someone else.

My daughter recently hurt her knee playing soccer. After a visit to DR. Dave, he left no stone unturned and he discovered she had a very bad meniscus tear. We had lost our insurance. He worked with us to do the surgery for the least amount of money out of our pocket. Who knew you could shop around for operating rooms?
Getting back to playing soccer and other sports was very important to our daughter. Dr. Dave did an excellent job with the surgery, preserving what he could of her meniscus to have the least impact long term. He is an amazing doctor who talked directly to our 15 year old to make her part of the process so it wasn’t so scary. He is a meticulous surgeon and I feel so blessed to have him as our doctor.

Dr. Dave Atkin has been my shoulder surgeon for about 8 years. By all objective accounts, one of the top shoulder surgeons in San Francisco. He was highly recommended not only by my personal physician, but by five different San Francisco physicians. His reputation precedes him. Whenever a medical professional, regardless of specialty, asks me who performed my shoulder surgery, their inevitable response, upon hearing it was Dr. Atkin, is «Oh, he’s the best; you can’t do any better.» And they’re correct.
In addition to his brilliant, and always cutting edge surgical skills and talents, he is one of the most decent, thoughtful and helpful professionals I have ever met. He cares, not only about his patients health, not only about providing them the highest quality, personalized attention and service possible, but also strives to return his patients to their highest possible level of physical activity. He has performed complicated surgeries, successfully, on both my rotator cuffs, ensured I had two excellent physical therapy regimens, provided more than adequate follow-​up, and restored me to a full bodybuilding exercise regimen.
In addition to providing outstanding patient services, Dr. Atkin also provides personalized medical education training for medical student interns in a variety of specialties.
And on top of his demanding schedule, he also serves the greater world community as director and volunteer surgeon of Operation Rainbow, a volunteer group of orthopedic surgeons and staff who travel, using their own money and through donations, to provide free orthopedic surgery to indigent children of developing nations.
I would not trust another surgeon with my shoulders, and, should my knees ever give out, Dr. Atkin will be hearing from me yet again. I heartily give Dr. Atkin, and his physician assistants, his nursing staff, his medical interns, and his entire front office staff, five stars for top quality medical service, professionalism and dedication.
Not only is Dr. Atkin the consummate surgeon; he is the consummate physician’s physician.

Years ago, I absolutely destroyed my ankle. I was referred to Dr Atkin by the ER. Dr Atkin took a look at my ankle xray and said «you probably broke your leg too, even though there is no pain there», and lo and behold the xray showed that as well. He was on his way out of the country to a doctors without borders thing but insisted I have a syndesmotic screw put in as soon as possible. Based on my own internet searching and paranoia, I was terrified that I would never ski or snowboard again, maybe not even walk without a limp, but he assured me my chances were good at a complete recovery. Today, I can not even tell I ever had an injury. I could not believe how totally and completely healed it was. I’m sure part of it was my awesome genes :-), but Dr Atkin did a bang job screwing my leg back together.
I was kind of worried and struggling at the time with physical therapy and never got the chance to go back and thank you, Dr Atkin, so this will have to do until the next time I bust a limb.
Thanks!

As I write this I am recovering from a very bad knee injury where Dr. Dave repaired a ruptured ACL, torn MCL (from the bone), and 3 tears in the meniscus.
Dr. Atkin and his staff where professional, nice, and the follow through post-​op by Dr. Atkin has been daily, which has shown me that Soma Ortho cares. I have never waited too long, and follow through has been terrific.
The Campus Surgery Center in Daly City was where Dr. Atkin perform the operation. This too is a top notch facility that appears be on the cutting edge of technology, and they place a high regard for patient experience.
I cannot say enough. This has been a good experience in a rather trying time of my life.