John Muir Physician Network

Thank you John Muir Medical group for screwing up knee when it could probably been less worse. It’s been almost 4 months, 2 doctors, 2 x-​rays, a dozen calls to medical assistants, John Muir and Blue Shield and no one seems to know what they’re doing. If you refuse to give my knee an MRI, then why would two doctors recommend it? Now that I’m out of the coverage area for a few months, you refuse to authorize an out of coverage PT so I can figure out what’s wrong with my knee. The insurance will pay for it, unfortunately, Blue Shield said that since you guys have to give the authorization (which you will not), they can’t do anything about it. So what is my husband paying for when they deduct health insurance premiums from his paycheck every month? The bottomline is, (and the last Blue Shield customer service agrees) that you just don’t want to lose the money that will get paid to you when I do PT outside John Muir. Greedy, greedy, greedy!!! And to think the only reason why I am doing PT is because you guys have denied every request for an MRI!

I was referred to this office by a family member upon relocating to the Bay Area. I was very disappointed in the endocrinologist to which I was assigned. She titrated my longstanding thyroid medications to dangerously low levels. She also failed to refill my longstanding medications in a timely manner so that I had to have the pharmacy get in touch with the on call doctor to have these prescriptions refilled. When I switched doctors, my current endocrinologist was appalled at the low level of thyroid replacement Dr Kimmell had me on.

I don’t need the color of the walls to match and the chrome to shine at Muir Physicians Network facilities. I need a freak’n wheel chair! I have excellent insurance but I get the shittiest service from Muir Physicians Network. Three weeks after I smashed my knee in an accident and still no wheel chair. Blue Cross of CA open a review on Muir Physicians Network.

The new JM Physician Network Outpatient Center on Treat Blv, which opened in Jan 2014, is a HUGE disappointment. I pay more for my company’s PPO insurance option because I want to be able to have access to my doctor when I need his assistance. I’ve got an amazing doctor, whom I’ve seen for more than 14 years. Unfortunately, he is member of the JM Health Group and recently moved to the new office on Treat Blv — which is set up like a poorly administrated Kaiser clinic. Getting access to my physician is now almost non-​existent. Call for an appointment — wait on hold for 40 mins, and then spend another 20 mins attempting to get the soonest appointment, which is 8 weeks away! On top of it the «patient representative» starts reading off the personal information of another patient in an attempt to verify she had pulled up my records. 8 weeks later I show up for my appointment, only to have to spend 10 mins in the registration department rattling off all of my medial record information because the representative needed to verify who I was, despite the fact I had provided her with my drivers license and insurance card. When I complained to my doctor — all he could do was say they were aware of the issues but that they’ve got a new email system that will eliminate the need for me to have to call and sit on hold, and I would get responses within 24 hrs. Yippee! Well, fast forward three weeks later I need to contact him with the new «efficient» email system. It’s now been 36 hrs and still no response (not even an acknowledgement of receipt) to my message. Called today, only to be told I couldn’t talk with his assistant and soonest I could get appointment to see him is 4 weeks from today. I actually think I would get better access to my physician if I were a Kaiser member — and my insurance would cost me ½ of what I currently pay for my PPO. Needless to say I am now looking for a physician who is not part of the John Muir Health Group.

So Granny’s been seeing a doctor in the John Muir Network for the past year; a most excellent doctor, but that is not what this is about. It’s January, 2014 and granny receives a new UnitedHealthCare (sic) Card, only it’s no longer her doctor, and she’s no longer carried by John Muir Physician Network; the new card in the mail is how she finds out that she’s been ‘reassigned’ (to a doctor 50 miles away (that rates 1 star), with a group that (also) rates 1 star on Unilocal (Hills Physican)). John Muir Physicians dropped all patients insured by UnitedHealthCare, or: UnitedHealthCare refuses continue to do business with John Muir unless they continue play (low-​) ball perhaps. (It’s the same thing)
I can’t fault John Muir for bailing on UnitedHealthCare, from a patients point of view however it remains THE BEST, they don’t shy away from covering stuff; but entire STATES have recently backed away. The ones popular with the Dr.‘s offices is Blue Shield. which is the WORST from a patient point of view… unless you are a very healthy patient. Blue Schield pays well for the minimum (standard) stuff, but throws up rejections for any technology that is less than 10 years old! While John Muir Hospital is one of the VERY best hospitals in the West, (that outshines Stanford in some technologies) their local demographic has become AARP intensive, and UnitedHealthCare and AARP are joined at the hip. So… I can understand that Doctor Groups may HAVE to bail on UnitedHealthCare as they may be uniquely hard hit, they need a large population of ‘healthy’ patients in their portfolio, and being AARP inundated cuts into their profit picture. I can understand that…
BUT: They should have contacted their impacted patients as soon as they saw this disconnect; NOW granny is past an ‘enrollment’ period and she’s SOL. She had a doctor that she had developed rapport with that is now off-​limits.
Watch out for John Muir Physican Network; they certainly don’t have YOUR best interests at heart, just their bottom line.
Your health is a commodity they can trade-​on, or reject without informing you, as they reshape their patient portfolio to fatten their wallets.