From encouragement to complete disappointment.

From initial professionalism and encouragement, to being ignored and complete disappointment.

I originally contacted the Laser Spine Institute on behalf of my mother, hoping to explore treatment options for her spinal condition. The initial, “Patient Coordinator,” that I was assigned to, failed to return my phone calls for an entire week. While this alone was frustrating enough to write them off, I decided to give it one more attempt. I requested a new coordinator, and was assigned to, “Colleen.” I was pleasantly surprised to find that Colleen returned my call the same day and was professional, courteous and very knowledgable about the beginning processes of evaluation. I worked with her during the week to coordinate medical appointments, transfer medical records, and basically start the process of having my mother evaluated for treatment. I submitted the non-refundable $250 fee to have a nurse call my mother directly, to gather additional pertinent information. Everything up to this point now seemed to flow, but that was about to change.

One of my initial concerns was scheduling availability to have the laser procedure done. I had a two week break in my work schedule where I would be available to airline my mother to Arizona for treatment. I expressed this concern right away, and it was agreed that we would most likely have ample time to complete the initial medical evaluations and have the surgical procedure scheduled on one of the two weeks in our target window. While they couldn’t make a 100% guarantee of schedule availability at that time, they remained fairly confident that her procedure could be completed within the two week window. I completely understood and was satisfied with that answer.

Fast forward to today… After my mother successfully completed her medical evaluations, we began waiting for someone to contact us regarding scheduling for the procedure. I had actually started making phone calls immediately after her initial medical evals were completed to emphasis the importance of getting her on the schedule, as I knew our window of opportunity was approaching. Crickets. No one returned my calls. I reached out for more than a week to the nurse coordinator that we had now been assigned to, but my numerous messages went ignored. No one called. I again contacted our original patient coordinator with my concerns and to hopefully instill some level of urgency in the scheduling process. I was advised that she would reach out to our nurse coordinator and find out why no one was returning my calls. That proved to be of no help. Still no one called. To sum this up, after the $250 nurse evaluation over the phone, we seemed to basically drop off the radar of anyone’s concern or interest at the Spine Institute. While their staff was initially encouraging and engaging, we suddenly found ourselves in limbo, unable to get the courtesy of simple call back.

After a long wait, (weeks), today represents the first call back I’ve received from the Laser Spine Institute, regarding scheduling. Unfortunately it comes just one week before our window of opportunity closes, and as expected, “Oh, we could never schedule a procedure just one week out.”

I’m beyond disappointed. I truly hope that those of you making the decision to use LSI, find the customer service element to be much more successful than our experience. I submit this to share our experience, and perhaps warn you that the smoke they initially blow at you in the beginning, might not last.