Eye Institute of Tarzana

I have been a patient for many years and this past year things have deteriorated. Yes, as prior reviewers noted, the wait time is at least one hour in waiting room and 10 to 20 minutes in the exam room. Dr Stiles is a good physician, but he isn’t a cuddly teddy bear. My biggest complaint is their terrible phone system, which I complained about to the receptionist, to no avail. Too much of the time you cannot reach a person, nor get a call back to messages left and the recordings are not working correctly as it just replays over & over and there is no indication you have reached a voice message to leave messages until there is almost no time left to leave the message. Being unable to contact office personnel will certainly end wait times in the office!

What’s the point of having appt if they wait 90 minutes to call you in? Seriously! They weren’t even busy, we were their 2^nd patient wasted so much time just sitting in their ugly waiting room

I see why they’re getting lousy reviews. Their robot keeps sending my new phone an appointment reminder for «Patricia». I called to tell them about it, and got dumped on hold for five minutes. Came here looking for an email address I could send to. Nope. Just want them to stop texting me.

Like another reviewer, I was kept waiting for an hour after my appointment, then the assistant let me into an exam room where I waited another half hour before seeing the doctor. And parking is $ 5 and they don’t validate. The doctor who did my exam (Dr. Steven Stiles) was OK if rather detached. The front office staff was OK as far as being cheerful and friendly (though they talk in that fast, clipped way and I noticed the receptionist didn’t make any effort to speak more clearly to a foreign gentleman customer who was having trouble understanding her). They charged me $ 40 to do the ‘refraction’ exam for eyeglass prescription (the gadget that holds the different lenses up to your face while the doctor asks you «which is better, this or this»), ON TOP OF the $ 65 insurance copay; I have NEVER had an ophthalmologist charge me extra for this over the insurance copay before! My problem was with Norman Friedman, the ‘dispensing optician’ of the office; when the front desk girl called him over because I asked to have the printed-​out prescription explained to me after my exam, he was extremely rude and didn’t want to explain it to me. «You don’t need to understand it, any optician will know what it means.» I said «but if I order glasses online, I need to know what’s what», whereupon he SCOLDED me loudly and harshly, «Well you SHOULDN’T be doing that, you’re going to be in A LOT OF TROUBLE!!» Excuse me??? Who are you to tell me where I can shop? I have ordered glasses online (Zenni) many times and they’ve been fine, and hundreds of dollars cheaper than the glasses you have the local optician make. I get it, he’s ticked off because opticians are LOSING those hundreds of dollars in business. In case anyone doesn’t know, it is the LAW that they have to give you your prescription so you can buy your glasses wherever you want, you DON’T have to buy them where you got the prescription. But times change, buddy, yes a lot of business is getting off-​shored, but you don’t take that frustration out on your CUSTOMERS. So I gave him a piece of my mind «As a consumer, I would like to understand my prescription; do you have a PROBLEM with that??», whereupon he relented and wrote out the different prescriptions I’d asked for (such as a computer/​reading progressive vs. a distance/​reading progressive) and showed me which was which (still being very snippy and snotty about it.) I will definitely ask my health insurance NOT to refer me to this office again.

This place is the worst office I’ve been at! They make you wait an hour before they see you, then another 30 min to finally get the doctor to see you! They don’t validate either! DO NOT COME HERE!!!

Such an easy process. I was in and out in a timely manner. My only complaint is that the receptionist (I’m assuming the head one) was so rude and even spoke to the Doctor in a sassy way. She really turned me off.