Santa Monica Womens Health - Santa Monica Sierra Hawk Hilt: Ive never experienced this kind of interaction with a medical office before.
I was looking for an Gyn doc and found Dr. Klevens listed as in my medical insurance network and accepting new patients. She has amazing reviews online so I contacted the office to book a new patient appointment with her. I first submitted a contact form but after several days decided to just call. When I did call there was a 19 person line ahead of me - which is just wild. But hey, they have a keep your place in line and get a call back option so I went with that.
Once I finally did get a call back, the front desk woman who I guess schedules appointments was plainly rude. I initially asked to make a new patient appointment with Dr. Klevens. The woman asked who referred me and I replied no one, because my insurance is PPO. She then informed me that Dr. Klevens runs her practice differently and only accepts referrals. If I wanted to come there, Id have to pick a different doctor - and starts listing out other available doctors.
I found this extremely odd because Dr. Klevens is listed on multiple websites (SMWH, SJPP, etc) as "Accepting New Patients". If she only accepts patients through referrals, perhaps that should be stated? Regardless, I then asked how to get the referral to see Dr. Klevens - would I just need to get one from my GP then?
The woman says no, it has to come from one of the doctors Dr. Klevens works with or from a patient. Flabbergasted, I asked which doctors she works with and the woman paused then said, VERBATIM "You wont be able to come here"
Excuse me?? Something very odd is going on at this practice, the whole thing was beyond bizarre.
