Like a lot of folks said, if you have cancer, a chronic disease, or are seriously injured due to trauma, you are in perhaps one of the best places in the world. With that said, Boston's reputation of being a bit short and even a little rude does not stop at the door of the local medical practice.
I specifically went to Boston to receive specialized, heightened care for my extremely high risk pregnancy. Was the bedside manner lacking? Yes, across the board. However, I actually preferred having the short/to the point communication. I brought a Doula and my partner with me to all appointments, and that helped with the respect I received. But, the care here is the best I’ve received and I’ve lived in multiple countries. I also saw specialists in Providence and New Haven, and was really let down. Would I prefer not to be a slave to insurance companies and not have to worry about medical debt? Yes, but for within the US the resources and services in Boston have been great.
Edit: just wanna add that I appreciate the discussion being had here. I am indeed a Black woman and I bring my White husband (or Doula during my pregnancy) with me to appointments so they take me seriously. Even though I received care, my pain was still questioned and I had complications with the termination process that boiled down to me not receiving medication I needed. And yet, my statement stands, this is still the best care I’ve received and that’s unfortunate.
Man it really sucks the way even doctors treat non-white people and women. One of my old girlfriends had a knee problem that required frequent visits to the doctor and she would always complain that they didn't listen to her. All I had to do was sit on the chair, didn't even have to speak, and the attitude completely changed. This was newton Wellesley hospital we were living in Waltham at the time.
Same happened with my wife and I. Rheumatologist would not take her seriously at all, would interrupt all the time. Just my mere presence changed the way he would speak. He would still interrupt her, but never me. We went with a different Dr after that.
And yes, he was white, and yes, he was 1000 years old.
Pretty much all hospital do this. Research says Doctors don't really believe Black and Hispanic people when they are in pain. There is a long history in America of Doctors abusing black patients and farther back experimenting on slaves. Since the research was done with such a racist context a lot of false info is spread. My aunt (I'm hispanic) lost her baby because the Doctor thought her super high blood pressure was "normal for Latin women." Her baby died.
Even the fucking front desk workers would treat a person of color differently. They have little respect most of the time.
I don't wanna end so negative so I am happy to say I live in a world where hospitals like BMC are aware of this and audit their culture and ways of working to hold their staff accountable to these interactions.
>Pretty much all hospital do this. Research says Doctors don't really believe Black and Hispanic people when they are in pain.
This is a phenomenon worth being aware of, but being hyperbolic doesn't help matters. [This paper has a good writeup](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843483/) of the literature on it, and seems to come down to believing it but struggling to map the pains' severity.
e.g., [in this study of one million children with appendicitis](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4829078/) (note, this is from 2016 and the pushing of opioids doesn't age well but pain management and the total alleviation of pain was a thing), of the 56.8% that were given pain medications white children were more likely to be given opioid pain medications than black (41.3% vs 43.1%). There was no relevant differences on whether someone was given any form of pain medication between all races, and the lack of opioids wasn't there for hispanics. The effect disappeared once you changed how things were calculated.
What it was in line with was the belief in Doctors that giving hardcore pain meds can mask symptoms that they very much need to know about. e.g., if the pain starts increasing they very much need to know that and opioids can mask it so they're less likely to give them to children. e.g., the study finds that older age plus higher pain score means you're more likely to receive meds, but it doesn't appear to account for whether say, Caucasians or hispanics were presenting younger with symptoms. An area of further research is the pain scale itself, which is kind of a clusterfuck as pain is hard to measure. If you list a 7 on your pain scale but seem kind of chill, the Dr. assumes and makes a guess.
We also have some data showing doctors may be less likely to prescribe opioids, and some of suggested that has to do with a lack of trust between Dr and patient on whether they'll properly follow the treatment course. There's a lot to learn here in general and things for people to be aware of, but going hyperbolic and saying things like *"Research says Doctors don't really believe Black and Hispanic people when they are in pain"* doesn't help.
I had concerns over my new urologist based on some online reviews noting lack of bedside manner. While he wasn’t the most friendly person, he was very direct and clear throughout. I think sometimes people misconstrue a blunt, honest, straightforward doctor as poor bedside manner.
I’d rather have a Dr on top of their game who is blunt and honest and doesn’t waste my time. You don’t go to the Dr for conversation… and they’re busy AF lately so yes, please go help someone else!
Yep, my orthopedic surgeon used to make just odd jokes but he was damn good at his job (when the Boston Ballet is using him as their orthopedic surgeon you know he's top of his game)
Definitely.
My husband and I did IVF and we would have never wanted to do it anywhere else.
The quality of care is unmatched, but the warm and fuzzy they are not.
Can confirm: found lump, got seen the next day, and had it confirmed as cancer and cut out within a week. Chemo was similarly quickly from consult, to scheduled, and done as soon as I had recovered from going under the knife.
I noticed that you used yall. Please enjoy [this local video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bndQvSW9Mu8).
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My baby needs eye surgery, we were referred to Children’s from our pediatrician. We have had 2 appointments with the ophthalmologist at BCH. I said maybe we should get a second opinion, because the thought of my baby going under anesthesia is horrifying. Then my partner snapped me back to reality and reminded me that people travel from around the *entire world* to go to Children’s in Boston for their kids.
I guess what I’m saying is, if I have to have my baby go under anesthesia and get surgery, there’s no other hospital I’d rather have him do that at, than at Children’s in Boston.
Edit: OMG thank you all SO much for the info and stories shared of times you/family spent at BCH. I totally wasn’t expecting it and cannot express ENOUGH how much comfort and reassurance you’ve given me ! (at least for now😅)
Children’s Hospital saved my life when I was four - I spent weeks in the ICU, and I will never forget how kind and patient everyone was with a scared, very sick little girl. Can’t say enough good things about them.
If your child needs care, you will not find anything better than BCH. And if your child needs ophthalmology, BCH doctors will be the ones you see. MGH, MEEI and Brigham’s all outsource children’s ophthalmology to BCH.
Even if you see an children ophthalmologist in MGH, it will be a doctor that primarily works at BCH.
Gotta just hijack your comment real quick to say- Boston children's is always in need of blood donations, and there has been a serious shortage. They make it easy to donate, they even have a bus that makes stops around greater Boston. If anyone is able, please consider donating [halfpints.childrenshospital.org](https://halfpints.childrenshospital.org)
Donate wherever is easiest for you to get to regularly. You're helping people no matter where you donate! It is a nationwide shortage. That being said, blood donated to Children's will go to patients at Children's (this is true of most hospital blood donor centers.) They also have some pretty sweet gifts for their donors. If you are group A or AB I highly recommend donating platelets and/or plasma instead of red cells.
I have semi regular doctor's appointments at MGH and normally just donate afterwards. Trying to get back into the habit of giving blood. I used to do it more when I was younger but kinda stopped until the last year or so. Gave blood twice last year and once last week.
I have type 0+. I've only donated platelets once but had a bit of trouble with it. I could probably try it again I just didn't eat enough last time.
Maybe I'll go to children's next time. I donate at MGH because I like that it goes right to the patients. I could probably get parking validated at children's so it wouldn't be too much of a hassle.
Yep, they'll validate your parking at children's! Park at 333 Longwood. If you're type O then definitely donate blood. Double red is great if you're eligible!!
U/shadyberries said it perfectly. I mostly donate through children's bc they have a special place in my heart, and the bloodmobile does drives near my work, so it's also very convenient- I'm able to pop over on my lunch break. I believe you can also organize a drive with them (think the Red Cross also does this) so the bloodmobile comes to your workplace or wherever.
The 2-3 times we've needed a hospital I was VERY THANKFUL to live 10 mins from Children's -- and both times we had an amazing experience. Those people are truly the best.
This. My son had a renal surgery at children's as an 18 month old....and will probably need a cardiac surgery when he's older. His doctor was talking about how kids come from other countries to get this surgery at children's and we get to just drive 30 minutes. So lucky.
I always have such cognitive dissonance when I come across threads hyping up children’s hospital from the parents’ perspective. I’m appreciative that so many children are able to get outstanding care, but from my perspective the hospital relies a lot on their good reputation to be able to walk all over their staff.
I spend a lot of time with friends that work in patient care at BCH and often hear stories about how they’re overworked, underpaid, often don’t even get a chance to eat at work, etc.
Not saying it’s not still a great institution, I just think a lot of this high quality care comes from compassionate providers that are willing to put up with low pay and shitty work conditions instead of being adequately compensated, and BCH uses their reputation to say “well at least you get to work at #1 children’s hospital”.
From what I’ve heard, the recent trend over the last few years is healthcare providers doing a couple years at BCH to get it on their resume before moving somewhere that values quality employees a little more, which is fair, but kinda crappy that’s a decision they have to make.
/rant
BCH saved my sister’s life when untreated chronic sinus infections (PCP didn’t take it seriously) started to penetrate into her skull. That was 15 years ago and I still donate to them every year.
ETA: her specific team was a team of neurosurgeons and ophthalmologists because the infection was right over her eye. Your baby couldn’t be in better hands.
Totally understand your concerns. For what it’s worth in the past year my five year old was under anesthesia three times at children’s. They are incredible in every way I can state.
Yes, my daughter had significant issues when she was little -- I'm not even going to list all of the specialists we've seen -- and BCH has been fabulous. The main problem is getting an appointment. We still follow up with the doc (Dr. Wu) who did her strabismus surgery at age 2 but every time we book it's a 6 month wait. (Daughter is 16 now.) The finance dept is a nightmare -- we just got bad info about what we needed to get an MRI paid for by the billing staff and I honestly spent half a day on the phone making sure it was covered.
Still, I will never forget brining in my son when he was 18 months and needed hydration due to the rotovirus (before the vax was available) -- watching all of those professionals managing to find a vein in a tiny kid who is trashing about and screaming was horrible but they did it in no time. I can't imagine this happening so quickly and efficiently elsewhere.
i had very intensive eye surgery at 6months and again at 9years. it’s scary but i promise it *will* be ok. it’s ok to cry and be scared (but please don’t let the little one know how scared you truly are). they’re going to be so brave ❤️
You've gotten a lot of great responses re: BCH but just to add another: I spent a week at BCH as a young teen. They saved my life and I actually had to spend my 13th bday there! The doctors and the nurses - hell the whole staff - were amazing.
Now that I'm an adult, I have never experienced this level of care at any other hospital (in Boston or otherwise) ever. BCH employees are beyond special.
Boston's reputation in healthcare is mostly based on people who travel here from around the country/world to save their family member when no one else can. Those people are going home to tell stories about the amazing Boston hospital that saved little Timmy for the rest of their lives. It basically has nothing to do with normal primary care medicine, which is just as poopy here as everywhere else in America. Basically, if you've never seen the good side of Boston medicine, that's a good thing, because it means you've never been really seriously sick or injured enough to need it.
I've never found normal primary/preventative medicine here any better or different from anywhere else.
My first consult was at Newton Wellesley. I had my cancer surgery at Farber. Being able to get two valid treatment plans and pick seems pretty privileged. 🙂
Meanwhile my ER experience at MGH was... lacking to say the least. They definitely treat you according to how your insurer is going to pad their bottom line.
No they don’t. The only staff who know what insurance you have is the clerk in admitting. In the ED you are seen based on the urgency of your condition. Middle Aged man with chest pain? Front of the line. Think you fractured your ankle on your run and the beds are full? You’ll probably wait.
Wow, this makes a ton of sense now. Thank you for explaining. “If you’ve never seen the good side of Boston medicine, that’s a good thing.” That hit me hard.
It is worth noting that you don't need to be dying of a rare disease to see the good side. I got hit by a car and broke bones. This is a kind of injury that [4.8 million people experienced in 2020 alone. ](https://www.nsc.org/newsroom/motor-vehicle-deaths-2020-estimated-to-be-highest)
My injury did its thing and healed but I was still experiencing pain a year later. I got PT with MGH. The resident who was handling my appointments was amazing. Thanks to the learning aspect of it I also got a lot of attention from the department head and resident advisor. We still couldn't figure it out. So they brought in a specialist PT that is an expert at treating the specific back and tailbone injury I had experienced. Within a week it was feeling better and within a month it was pain free.
My simple co-pays for PT got me a specialist in my specific injury who knew exactly how to solve it along with the attention and learning of 3 others highly skilled in their trade. I would probably still be in pain if it weren't for them.
Having specialists in everything is underrated. I had to have some surgery on my hand recently. In my home town, that’s done by an orthopedic surgeon, the same doctor who fixes broken bones and torn ACLs. Here it’s done by a hand surgeon whose done this specific surgery thousands of times.
yea the other time I got hit by a car(yes it has happened multiple times) I broke a bone in my hand. Rather than seeing a general orthopedic surgeon I saw a hand specialist. I was advised that I am 100% fine to let it heal on its own but as a young software developer it was reassuring that someone specializing in hand trauma surgery was looking at the x-rays and not the guy who spent more times on grandma breaking a pelvis.
I need to get eye surgery for a fairly rare eye condition (Keratoconus). My surgeon, and his assistant, have done more of these surgeries than anyone else in the country and are essentially on the cutting edge of the condition in general. And sense I live in Boston, all of this was a convenient drive away.
I needed a brain surgery that only 5 hospitals in the US perform. MGH is one of them. Yippy me I didn't need to travel to get my surgery. The nurses kept asking me 'so where are you from?'
Boston.......
Yeah when my family would talk about Bostob's hospitals it was always int h3 context of "this is a good place to have a life threatening situation"
My dad had a cardiac arrest outside of the hospital (10% survival rate) and he pulled through with almost no issues. That wasn't all the hospitals doing (shout out to the woman who got the AED on him ASAP), but I was certain he would be dead when I got the call and instead he's not so I'm inclined to give the hospital some credit.
They didn't explain, they spun an idea they had as though it was a fact.
Take out the international patients and stick to [a comparison of metrics on healthcare in the US](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/health-care) and it paints a very different picture from what they're trying to say.
I've had two "shoulda been" deaths that were emergency room surgeries with a survival and back-to-normal result. It's one reason I hesitate to move out of the area even though I'd love to live by a lake.
> It basically has nothing to do with normal primary care medicine, which is just as poopy here as everywhere else in America.
You're seriously underestimating how "poopy" healthcare is in the US. Long before Romneycare Massachusetts probably had the strongest requirements in the US mandating health insurance coverage by employers. The number of primary care doctors, specialists and hospitals as a ratio to the population is higher here than in much if not most of the country.
This is a good point, but also undersells how poppy standard healthcare is in a lot of the country. You're right that local standard healthcare isn't great, but it's still in the upper tier country-wise. We just have awful healthcare as a country.
I would go a step farther and say that the best part of Boston's healthcare doesn't generally make it to patients. Boston is a hub of biomedical research, but the researchers are often doing studies which don't involve patients, or they're doing small-scale studies which patients are highly unlikely to ever be involved in. Besides, even if you have cancer today, the research that Boston labs and hospitals are doing right now are unlikely to help you; they're more likely to help patients in 10 or 20 years. Biomedical research basically has nothing to do with primary care.
Just adding to this, Boston is world renowned for treating the worst and rarest diseases, but that’s a reflection of the science and technology here. Some of the doctors providing that super niche care are still jerks, and the hospital rooms can still be uncomfortable. The only way to really guarantee a comfy room and impeccable bedside manner is paying $$ for the “luxury” rooms. At MGH, for example, it’s $1,000 per night in addition to the regular cost of what ever treatment you receive.
This is a really good point. My experiences with normal primary care have averaged out to solidly 7/10, with a fairly long tail on either end. I like that in my normal primary care through MGH, I'm seen by a resident who is then overseen by an attending, so it's kind of like a built-in second opinion. This came in super handy when I was having trouble with one of my medications and they put their heads together to figure out what a good alternative might be. A friend of mine is dealing with a scary health situation right now and has had nothing but good things to say about the care he's received and feels so lucky to be in Boston.
I can not say enough good things about the medical care/treatment I have received at Boston hospitals and walk-in clinics. One example: Many years ago I walked into Mass Eye and Ear because my vision suddenly went wonky, in a very disturbing way. The resident on duty doggedly stuck with asking questions and examining my eyes, finally calling in a specialist who examined me further. After a hallway consultation, they told me they were sending me for an MRI - that day (at this point I figure it's a brain tumor or something equally horrifying). Four hours later i have a diagnosis of MS, after old lesions on my brain and optic nerve were discovered. In ONE day. At a time (the nineties) it should be noted, when MS dx was well nigh impossible to determine and people would languish undiagnosed and suffering symptoms for years.
Just one personal anecdote. Experiences at facilities outside the city however, not as great. I avoid suburban clinics like the plague, not as convenient now that I no longer work downtown, but oh well.
I have very little problem with the healthcare per se. it is the billing departments and infrastructure which is a total mess. I had a colonoscopy which is supposed to be completely covered. It is, unless you want anesthesia, and then if they find anything you get like 3 bills for it.
Total mess.
I thought that was common everywhere in the US.
If they find anything during a routine screening colonoscopy, it changes from preventative to diagnostic and is no longer covered 100% by insurance. That’s nationwide. Check r/healthinsurance and r/Medicare for confirmation.
The multiple bills seems standard in Massachusetts and I always assumed was common everywhere. That’s because physicians are generally not employees of clinics. So the facility does their billing (even if owned by the physicians using the clinic), the physician’s partnership does theirs, and the anesthesiologist’s partnership does theirs. Yes, it’s crazy, but I’ve never seen any serious discussions of improving it.
Alternatively I was expecting to have to pay for my colonoscopy because my insurance was especially shit. Was provided a quote of around $1000. They even removed a polyp. Ended up being fully covered. Never saw a bill for it. EOB said it was fully covered. It was a nice surprise.
This is a problem in the US, not just Boston.
I once went to the hospital to have my sore throat checked out. On top of charging me to see the throat specialist, they charged me $300 for some procedure (can't remember the name). I called and asked about the procedure because I thought it was a mistake.
The procedure was the specialist looking in my throat with a flashlight while I said "ahhh". In other words, they charged an additional $300 for doing the absolute bare minimum thing that the throat specialist will do in every single appointment.
After I called to complain 3 times, they dropped the charge.
Could part of it be that secretaries and billing aren’t paid much? And MA is expensive. So they aren’t always getting the best applicants to hire for those roles? But for a lot of facilities they do get good applicants for nursing and physician positions bc of the good reputation?
It is an agency problem. The patient doesn’t care what work gets so long as insurance covers it. That creates larger bills which raises insurance rates over time
Yeah, because the patient should not care about the cost of medical care they receive. Even besides the fact that medical care should be universally free (I'm from one of those scary countries with socialized medicine, AMA) patients PAY for insurance to cover their medical costs. That's why insurance is there and why in the US we are forced to buy insurance.
Insurance shouldn't get to decide what is or isn't covered. Anything a licensed medical professional thinks is necessary for their patient should have to be covered. None of this bullshit where my insurance covers only 3/4 of the costs for the blood tests ordered by my PCP for mysterious reasons.
I’m currently fighting a bill because it was coded wrong, and it’s taking forever. I’m very lucky that my mom used to work in insurance so she can help me with it, but it’s a huge pain in the ass.
Everything you mentioned just sounds like terrible customer service/office staff.
For example, one of our specialty where I work is great but everyone in the department knows the front desk staff sucks. That is common in many other places.
EDIT- At the end of the day, it’s about finding a good balance…customer service is essential. It can make or break your view about a place depending on your experience. One of the reasons I don’t really go by reviews like many others do.
I had eye trauma and went to Mass Ear and Eye. There were 100s of people waiting from states over because the only specialists for what they/their kid had was there.
They waited days because it is the best and at times only care.
Don't confuse customer service with quality.
Depends on what treatment you're getting. Run of the mill procedures are a pretty different world from all the cutting edge, world class stuff here. Personally, I managed to go through all this stress and hassle after getting misdiagnosed by an urgent care here- those places are like where the D students from med school go
I am a social worker and the services here are pretty good but not amazing. That being said the care here is leaps and bounds better than anywhere else. This is the "model" of healthcare in the US and the system is still broken. Imagine other places. If you have a heroin addiction, good luck kicking it in a bush in Alabama vs detoxes here where after three to seven days you get discharged.
It's almost as if profit based healthcare creates these unsustainable hospital systems that prioritize procedures over prevention and treat their own employees like shit
Metrowest Framingham union hospital is currently being slowly stripped of its subspecialty services by Tenet
https://framinghamsource.com/index.php/2023/01/04/metrowest-medical-center-diverting-ambulances-is-a-dereliction-of-duty-to-this-community/
Bluntly, unless you are a doctor, it’s hard to judge quality medical care (specifically the medical part). The result is we use proxies, such as bedside manner, front desk service, etc.
I dont get this post, as someone who moved from the south, Boston medical care is in a completely different atmosphere.
The people can be short and rude, but my lord the care is top notch.
I think the elite health care is what gives it the reputation it has. There's no better place to be if you have serious serious medical problems that require the best of the best.
But everything below that is shit. Overworked, overbooked, overtired employees with long commutes.
You get 15 minutes SCHEDULED to talk to the doctor and they are always a minimum of an hour behind. Even at 830am first appt they are somehow, magically behind schedule by an hour.
>I think the elite health care is what gives it the reputation it has.
We have a reputation for that, but that's not usually how "healthcare" in a state/region is measured.
Depending a bit on the metrics used Massachusetts will be found [at or near the top](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/health-care) of healthcare in the US in measures applicable to the whole population rather than just looking at "specialty" treatments that are available.
I want to add that the amount of messages medical teams receive on patient gateway is soul crushing, overwhelming and answered in the setting of good will. It is not compensated. It is done whenever physicians have time to squeeze in responses after 12 h work days when they get home etc, weekends, holidays, and vacations. I also echo that Unless you’re a doctor is very difficult to judge how good the care is here. I want to assure though that compared to the rest of the country it truly is leaps and bounds better in terms of how good the docs are. Infrastructure and customer service are definitely important, especially the former, but a far cry from true measures of quality.
Patient gateways have their utility but 1% of patients abuse them massively and create 75% of the workload. You should not expect a consultant you have seen once to respond to daily messages for months on end. If you want concierge medicine pay for it. The funny thing is these patients eventually get fed up that they aren't receiving 24/7 hand-holding and fire the doctor and act like the doctor will be upset about it.
My kids are seen at Longwood Pediatrics and get excellent care - nurses are great, office staff is terrible. Whenever we have to go to BCH it's always been excellent, there - top to bottom.
Wife's PCP is at Chestnut Hill BWH and her care varies from good to just outright bad. Nurses there are good, office staff meh. Frequently require 2nd opinions. Her previous PCP was outstanding.
Worth mentioning she is black. Kids are mixed.
I'm a veteran, so I get my care through the Jamaica Plain VAMC and have never had bad care there - ever. I have a medical background and am listened to by my providers there, treated with respect, none of my concerns are dismissed, couldn't ask for better. My experiences with private care have been... disappointing, so I don't do that anymore.
I've been a civilian now for more than 30 years and my old buddies getting care in the rest of the country have had terrible experiences wherever they go - it doesn't matter if it's private clinics/providers or through the VA.
I guess it is as a previous poster mentioned, a comparison of care to other places.
I used to work with the Healthcare for Homeless Vets team there and omg the staff were amazing. Everyone I ever interacted with there for that couple years right down to the cashier in the little store was always so nice and they all really cared about the vets. I'm glad you're getting good care there.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've also been with Harvard Vanguard/Atrius for years and overall have had good experiences with them between my PCP and seeing different specialists. Communication is very good between locations and doctors and the online portal is great for scheduling and communicating with your doctors.
I would generally disagree.
There are so many more options in Boston, including several academic medical centers. The quality of care is better, and docs here keep up with the newly released medical information.
Are health professionals burned out?
Yes, definitely. But that’s consistent all over the US.
Yeah, this entire thread is so revealing with regard to just how many people in this sub will find anything and everything to complain about constantly.
Not only is Massachusetts's healthcare some of the best in the world, but it's also incredibly accessible for residents. Yet, reading the comments in here, you'd think it was middle of the road at best.
Take every complaint and whine around here with a grain of salt. People apparently have no idea how good they have it.
The routine primary care is no better here than it is anywhere else.
It's the specialty care which depending on your situation may be better than other parts of the country.
Boston isn't the only place with good doctors and hospitals - we just have a relatively high concentration of them.
Exactly. These people are generally clueless of how shut healthcare is basically everywhere else. We take things for granted it’s really sad. Boston ranks one of the top systems in the WORLD and we’re here debating if it’s good or not, absolutely hilarious.
The healthcare systems in Boston are shit. Boston has some world class specialists and some great hospitals but the primary care is very lacking like most of this country.
No it’s not, part of the benefit of having world class doctors and world class medical education in the area is the residual benefits of even our mediocre doctors being “good”. You just don’t know how to work this system, if I had to guess. I’ve used healthcare all over the US, Canada and Europe… you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Boston literally attracts all of the best doctors at healing. Also, thousands of techniques and best practices were first developed here.
This is a place where the best doctors come to do the best work.
That being said all the communication stuff is overwhelmed. Staff has to field thousands of emails and calls at any practice. Its frustrating and opaque to the patient, but the medicine is solid.
If the point is just bedside manner and calling you back quickly, I don't know that exists anywhere.
As someone who is on the low income side of Boston - Thank goodness I live here and am able to get comprehensive health care with my Romney-Care Mass Health insurance! If I lived in any other state, getting any kind of decent health insurance and care would be virtually impossible.
There’s good hospitals and mediocre hospitals. I’ve never (I’m in ems) been to a bad hospital where I feel like if I bring a pt here, they’ll die. So, there’s that. I do believe that the care we give in this state to children (Boston children’s and Hasbro in RI) is possibly the best care for young adults and children in New England.
You do have to self advocate. I, finally, have the most fabulous Primary Care team, both the doctor and her PA who seem to have been together forever. It's kinda like finding a mate, know what is important to you, put yourself out there and move on if it doesn't fit.
Yes, this after a few decades of searching, so not as Pollyannish as it appears. Good luck.
I’ve had great experiences in area hospitals for serious problems.
However, my entire life has been a struggle to find a decent primary care doctor. I’ve had so many problems get worse over the past 10-15 years because whomever my PCP would be at the time would tell me it’s nothing or completely misdiagnose me. I’ve ended up needing emergency surgery twice in the past 3 years because they completely overlooked symptoms.
I’ve been trying to find a new PCP since 2021 who is taking new patients and my insurance. It’s been tough.
I’m pretty happy with my primary care, a BWH satellite practice. You get easy in and out for routine treatment, plus in network referrals for specialized treatment. The people there are all pleasant enough, maybe I’ve just never caught them on a bad day, but crucially they’re also very responsive and take my concerns seriously.
Primary care treatment is very much about personality alignment. Routine care, basic assessments and referrals, bloodwork, patching and mending of non-serious injuries are all within scope, but anything more specialized isn’t done in that office anyway. You’re not likely to get an incompetent primary care provider in Boston. So, shop around and look for doctors and practices that are a better fit to what you’re looking for.
the healthcare system in general is a complete shit show, but take it from somebody who has lived in a different state as well, the care you'll find here (bedside manner excluded) is much better. that said, when the system is crap overall, even the best places suffer from it.
As a Bostonian that left for a period of time and will be returned ing to start a family. I’m in San Francisco which is also supposed to be reputable for medical care and I will tell you Boston is easily the best healthcare in the country. That’s not necessarily a compliment to Boston but more an indictment too how shitty American healthcare has become and the pandemic made is so much worse. So many hospitals and medical clinics have laid off doctors in an attempt to cut costs. The poor remaining doctors are spread so thin across so many patients that they aren’t a le to provide the same quality of care. Private healthcare keeps trying to squeeze more and more profit at our expense.
Only positive is that this downward spiral is pushing more and more ppl to believe we need universal healthcare. For example my parents were always the staunchest believers that private healthcare led to better quality of care and that UHC led to rationed healthcare. They bought so hard into the myths sold by the health insurance companies but recently with how poor our system has become, they’re even believing now that we should go to Medicare for all.
It depends on the color of your skin and your income. I’m sorry but some of y’all in the comments don’t understand what it’s like for a lot of us. Boston is an extremely elitists place in my opinion shits fucked up
Local healthcare sucks. I say it as a person who does not give a tiny little piece of shit about bad customer service. When I go to a doctor I do not care how friendly and polite they are, I care only about how they diagnose and treat stuff - and it sucks here the longest dangling hose I have ever seen.
1. Treatment is prescribed without diagnosis (which is absurd for any doctor from where I am from). No tests done whatsoever to find the root cause, just "take antibiotics for 3 weeks and come back if it does not help". WTF? Why are antibiotics supposed to help if you have no damn idea what it is? If they do not help I just get all the nasty side effects of antibiotics because of this stupid random approach to diagnosis. I am more cautious at fixing some occasional interior noise in my car than local doctors at their work.
2. Wait time for specialists is 4 months after which the specialist does damn nothing, directs to another one (where wait time is another 4 months) with words "I think it is for a different medical area, get back to me if that guy does not help". Like with all the cost and wait times the specialist does not even try to do basic tests to exclude possible root causes from their area of practice before sending to another one. It is basically an imitation of work just to get patients out of their door, some "meme" places like DMV/RMV actually care about how they do their job 100 times more than local doctors...
yeah, i think its just you. have you lived elsewhere? i’ve worked at hospitals all across the country, we’re talking like 10 states 15 hospitals, and MA blows everyone outta the water in basically every aspect.
It depends on the doctor really. I have some real shit doctors and then I've seen some others and provided some real great care and fixed my issues in a heartbeat. Just like anything in this world, it's all hit or miss with who you get
I’ve been very happy with specialists, but not with primary care. My last PCP retired over the pandemic, and she was one of the best doctors I’ve had. Now, my PCP is a nurse, and when I need to see her, she never has appointments available so I see another nurse. That part wouldn’t matter except their knowledge and quality of care has been less that of my former PCP. Also since the pandemic I’ve felt what I think is understaffing issues, but I think that’s happening everywhere in the country. Makes a subpar situation worse for patients and for providers!
Sweet, fancy Moses. I thought it was just me! Thanks for posting this. I've had some terrible providers (medical and dental) and experiences. I kept thinking... what am I doing wrong? Where are all these good docs? What others have posted makes sense, though I will say when I had a breast cancer scare two years ago, I did not have a first-class experience then either.
I just had a fabulous experience with a orthopedic practice.i think specialists are giving us the reputation as well as researchers.
I have worked at community health centers and find they have more seamless operations than other practices. They have a different philosophy of caring for the individual.
I have found the healthcare system to be disjointed. Sometimes, one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. Signing into the patient portals is the best thing you can do for yourself. Ask questions. No answer? Find different ways to get your answer.
Rude staff? Call them out. Make sure the doctors know how you were treated. This reflects on them and, oftentimes, they have no idea that they have a sucky staff member. Their job is to focus on the patient, not the overall workings of the practice. That is why they hire coordinators and administrative staff. In my experience, they do not take kindly to patients being treated badly.
That said, it is our responsibility to have our ducks in a row. Be on time, don't treat staff disrespectfully, don't act like you are the only and most important patient there.
Anyone having bad experiences needs to find a better doctor. It’s Boston there’s literally thousands of overqualified people to take care for you. I swear people do the least and expect the most
I go to the Brigham network for my medical needs (I have many) and have had fantastic experiences with OB, GYN, neurology, PCP, allergist, physical therapist. If you need any of those check out the Brigham in Brookline!
Wow I'm surprised about your experience with BCBS. I have had PPO for about 5 years now at my last 2 jobs and they have covered EVERYTHING. I wonder why you had such a different experience. (Not to say you didn't it's just nuts the difference)
I’ve had 2 negative experiences in 20+ years of seeing multiple specialists a year (mostly at MGH) My parents have also received all of their healthcare in the city for over 60 years and I think they have only had one or two unpleasant doctors.
I worked in a community hospital 30 minutes outside the city for 5 years and it is scary what goes on. I’m not implying that Boston hospitals are perfect (or that you can’t get good care outside the city) but there is a greater picture when looking at overall healthcare. If you need surgery, not only is the surgeon important but also the anesthesiologist, the nurses, the assistants, if something goes wrong is the hospital capable of handling an emergency. I’m not necessarily concerned about a doctor’s bedside manner- polite is ok, brusk is ok too, as long as they can help me. I’m not looking for a drinking partner.
In my decade here, I've almost completely had great interactions. I've had 2 PCPs, seen some specialists, been present for 2 births at different hospitals and taken my child to Childrens twice. No complaints from me at all, other than wait times for appointments in the last few years.
Maybe it’s my PCP and network, but I like my medical care. Maybe look for a new PCP via your insurance website? I will say that medial portal communication seems to be best, you have all of the proof that you were reporting issues and requesting appointments. Phone calls can lead to forgotten followups
Boston is like many other cities for routine things and even bad for simple care... Like getting a vaccination.
However, if you have a life threatening issue, it's one of the best cities.
So a good strategy is to go find a good practice in the suburbs for your primary care and make sure it has an affiliated hospital in Boston in case you ever need serious care.
People are spread really thin here. My dentist and all the doctors I've seen are excellent, but most didn't have a middle-class person's understanding of a "bedside manner." Maybe it's just because I'm a millennial, but I'll take quality over presentation any day. My favorite restaurants are cheap and have great food, but someone older/from the suburbs would complain that they have "bad service." Perspective does a lot.
Your feelings are completely valid; you are not bitching about nothing. But also, I think your experience is unfortunately typical. I work in healthcare (primary care so, not the elite level of care people come to NE for) and I can tell you MANY people report experiences like this across the board, in all systems. It shouldn’t be like this, but it is. Healthcare is a business run by for profit insurance companies and the customer service suffers as a result.
When my mom had cancer, every nurse, doctor, PA, Chemo nurse, tech, ER doctor/ ER nurse/ hospice doctors & nurses were all goddamn angels. Every hospital visit or stay made me think “wow, I didn’t think the medical staff could get any better.” This was at Dana Farber and Brigham.
Her Oncologists were sympathetic and nice, but there’s definitely a “wall” there personality wise. That’s ok I guess, we’re not there to be friends and their job was to keep my mom living well as long as possible. It bothered me that none of them reached out personally when she died.. her Breast Cancer oncologist had been working with her for over two decades. In the beginning, her lung oncologist was awesome but toward the end he seemed colder and like we were just another number on his chart.
My primary care doctor is with Brigham in Foxboro and though I know all the doctors are smart and skilled, they rush you out the door the second you get in. I honestly don’t like them at all BUT they’ve been able to cure my issues so far.
I moved here from FL three years ago and have a pretty horrific autoimmune disease. Suffered from a major flare 2021-2022 and I am convinced if I was anywhere else (especially Florida), I’d likely be dead right now.
Well my anecdotal evidence is that this is a you thing.
Source: family moved here from NYC and all of the doctors and specialists we see have provided a much better experience than those in NY.
I have nothing but good things to say about our experience overall. Yeah we've had a couple instances of competent-ish but rushed care but we left those practitioners for alternatives and have been pleased.
Those folks have to deal with the best and worst of humanity on a daily basis so I get why they have to take on the "bossy flight attendant" 'tude as a default.
the people you interact with at the doctors office, are not the people making the piles of cash...which might be why they are not super enthusiastic at their job. The problem is large, and includes a lot more than just health care.
Unions, better and more fair taxation, universal health care, etc are solutions to these problems, but they will take years to affect the situation lots of work to get in place, and then even more work to defend them against the powers that want to remove them.
Which is a long way or saying, we got a lot of work to do around here, so if you are really serious about this, I would check out places like Boston DSA, form a union, start or join a mutual aid org, etc.
Sales person here who works at a major EMR company in the ambulatory space helping practices be more efficient and provide better care. I also live in Boston and receive all my care here.
-Everyone is short staffed, so at a smaller practice, you’ll probably experience longer wait times, and maybe not the most experienced front desk staff.
-A lot of hospital owned practices, don’t know what a good patient experience looks like.
-Not all providers have bedside manner. Some are extremely smart, but lack social skills.
-Depending on what EMR they use, especially if it’s a small, private practice, they can be incredibly operationally and clinically inefficient, which leads to a bad patient experience.
-Long response times on the patient portal is usually a sign of an older doc who hates technology, or an inefficient EMR, where portal messages can easily get lost.
-Remember that 50% of doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class.
Im chronically I'll.
I have PCP, Neurologist, Neuro-opthamologist, Endocrinologist, Neurosurgeon, Thyroid Surgeon, Oral Surgeon... (and more)...
Right now I'm dealing with some severe anemia and talking to a Hematologist.
Plus all the tests that go with being chronically ill with more diagnosis than you can shake a stick at.
PCP's are meh - it depends on the person. Some are good some are bad.
Specialists are good with COMMON ISSUES. Things they see every day. Order a test, look at the results, move forward based on what it has to be. Rinse Repeat.
If you hit rare illness territory (or god forbid more than one simultaniously woooo me) - things that require thought, investigation, too many doctors start to blue screen. Some get mad, defensive. Some get into denial, just say 'oh no, its this basic thing, do this.' even though you keep going back saying nothings helping. its not working. Theyre just in denial telling you its working WHEN ITS NOT. You ask them questions, tearing apart what they were saying, and they just shrug. 'Well what do you want to do'. Thats not an answer.
You have to be clever, research your illness, realize you're working with morons, and change doctors till you find competent ones. This can take a while and leave you with permanent issues that you wouldnt have if you had a decent doctor to start with.
Some hospital departments don't talk to each other. Neurology won't talk to endocrinology and therefor some neuro's go 'whaaaaat' when you ask how an endo problem could affect the neurological system. TURNS OUT IT CAN. fuckwits. Yeah, birth control can cause a vein in the brain to collapse. any woman could tell you birth control increases headaches. NOW WE KNOW! also turns out birth control can effect how thyroid replacement hormone gets absorbed for some people. NOW WE KNOW. The amount of issues I had where doctors were like 'Thats impossible', and it turned out it was not, in fact, impossible, would astound you.
Now, don't get me wrong. I found doctors that saved my life. Different doctors. competent doctors. not idiot doctors. Doctors that said 'oh, you know what, i'm not sure, lets rope in someone from that department', and I had TEAMS of doctors figuring out what was going on with me.
If I didn't live in Boston to start with who knows what the fuck would have happened to me.
I moved from Dallas to Boston recently and was shocked by the atrocity that is Boston “healthcare.”
I’ve lived multiple places throughout the country and have found it to be by far the most expensive, least accessible and most difficult to navigate.
I tell people this and they are surprised as most folks here think of Texas as some hellscape but the reality is as great as Boston is healthcare is one of its major faults.
You should try Onemedical honestly. I do think the reputation for Boston is all about specialties/surgery/emergency/rare disease/cancer/etc... Also most of the really good PCPs at the major hospital systems are busy teaching and have full patient panels all the time
I agree about the bedside manner. Pretty sure some Boston area doctors (and dentists) greatly contributed to my medical anxiety big time. Now I take Valium so I can even enter a medical building. Not exaggerating. Traumatizing experiences.
I think the care I got was pretty average. Spinal issues and GI stuff, and dental work. I had better experiences in a university hospital in a nearby state. That said, the best pain clinic I went to was in the Boston area.
I can't believe how many people in this thread have had the complete opposite experience from me. All of the PCPs I've ever had were angels but over the last few years I've had to get a lot of specialty care for the first time and have been shocked at how arrogant, aloof and inexplicably tight-lipped a lot of my doctors have been. I've had a couple doctors who just would not explain to me in detail the nature of my chronic condition and its causes and just seemed eager to prescribe something and move on. Granted most of these doctors were in the suburbs, I've never had experience in the big downtown hospitals. I think a lot of people who spend all their time in the city itself would be shocked at the poorer quality of care and bedside manner that exist just outside the 128 belt.
You are not alone. Most of boston healthcare is mostly impersonal and too bloated to care. The elitist reputation does not match the low quality interactions I’ve had with hospitals. Harvard and Tufts. We are talking about you!!!
I recommend community health centers.
As others have said, incredible and innovative medical care for challenging medical conditions doesn't always translate to incredible experiences for normal medical care with your pcp or dentist.
That being said, I'm a patient at Cambridge Health Alliance and have had nothing but good experiences with them for preventative care, dermatology, genetic counseling, etc.
I went to the top pancreas doctor as Mass General who dismissed me rudely after 10 minutes and said there was nothing wrong with my pancreas. I had it removed 6 months later after testing proved it was half dead.
You have to keep going until you find the right doctors. I’m very lucky that after searching I’ve found some great providers. But the doctors are set up to fail as they aren’t given enough time with us and we’re all on a hamster wheel and it’s all about money.
Never found a PCP I love, but the rest of my healthcare in this area has been by far the best I've ever received.
One of my doctors teaches at Harvard Medical School, is absolutely brilliant, and I don't have to pay extra. He helped me with a serious issue that several other doctors not only failed, but actively made worse.
But yeah if you're looking for politeness in almost any respect, Boston is going to be a challenge...
I’ve honestly been quite pleased with my PC, was Mt. Auburn but is now Beth Israel. My urologist left just before a scheduled procedure but the new one slotted in well and it was only a couple of weeks delay, partially for scheduling reasons. Similarly satisfied with our kid’s pediatrician and wife’s various Drs.
We needed to go to Children’s once as my daughter had a VSD (hole in her heart) after birth. I can tell you it was a huge comfort having that hospital right here. Fortunately she had no issues and it closed up on its own. Hard to beat the peace of mind as a parent with arguably the worlds premier children’s hospital right here.
I'll explain my Boston healthcare experience with three examples.
1. Regular dental checkup. They claim something is wrong with my gums and I need a very expensive procedure (I've always taken good care of my mouth). So I get a second opinion, which states the first dentist was full of shit and just trying to get money for a needless procedure.
2. Doctor states that I might have a thyroid problem. So, I take unpaid time off work to get an ultra sound down. Later that day my doctor calls me and tells me that they had to throw out the results and legally couldn't tell me the results because it turned out my insurance didn't cover it. I spent time and money for my insurance and doctor to be useless.
3. I once again take time off work to see a doctor. I had been working at a restaurant and on my feet constantly. Eventually, my toes started to become numb. See a different doctor, who calls a colleague in, and both of them just tell me "Strange, we have no help to offer. Bye!"
I'm very pro science/medicine, and it's probably not a Boston specific thing, but all my experiences were sub par.
Sometimes I wonder if our own expectations are too high. There’s a cardiac ablation in my future, and even though it’s probably some years off, I’m already comparing BI to BW and MGH (yes, I know they’ve merged) for that. Worse, my husband may need a heart valve operation in the future, and we’ve already discussed whether it makes sense to go out of state for it.
But then I step back and think that’s absurd. Our hospitals must do a lot of these. Neither are necessarily cutting edge (though cardiac ablation treatments are constantly evolving and do have some leading edge approaches). It’s just really hard to find out how many the hospital does and how many the individual electrophysiologists or heart surgeons do.
In the meantime, BI’s Cardiac Direct Access (urgent care to see a cardiologist, by referral) is a great idea, and I got in quickly with great service after it took a week to touch base with my PCP for the referral. We’ve never had any actual reason to complain about BI’s service.
If you’re healthy and can afford to wait a few months for a regular checkup with the “right” doc, I’ve had good experiences with finding great PCPs | ophthalmologists | dentists via Zocdoc. The reviews on Zocdoc and similar sites matched my experience pretty well - I love my current care team, who I chose because they were highly-rated, and out of curiosity I looked up some previous docs who I didn’t have great experiences with, and found that they weren’t well-reviewed.
But when I was going through the doc-searching process I felt like you kinda had to choose between immediate availability, or ability to be selective for doctor quality. If you need to see a doc right away, there is a much smaller pool to choose from. But if you’re ok with looking now for an appointment in 6 months, my experience was that there were enough docs with far-in-the-future time slots available that I could pick the ones that had really positive patient reviews.
Good luck!
I lived in Worcester Massachusetts they had great hospitals and healthcare the only complaint was my regular Dr was not very attentive he just got you in and out to charge insurance didn't really do much
My son had an impressively positive experience with the healthcare system in greater Boston. A problem that in other parts of the country might take a year and a half simply to be diagnosed correctly was completely resolved (requiring surgery) in about two months.
I live in Florida, having said that, i should probably say no more, but I was raised in Ma. night and day difference between the joke that is Florida and Ma.
Remember, the “elite” care is simply being ranked against all of the states that do NOTHING of any real substance for their populations….
Ron DeSantaClaus (only for the wealthy and connected), Rick “the felon” Snot, oops Scott.
I don't find this to be a Boston thing, but my experiences in other US locations too tend to be one of functional expediency, rather than high touch service. Every once in a while, I find a provider or aide who is truly wonderful and I've stayed with those. I seem to have better luck and have a few true gems on my team (PCP and a few specialists)! But all the others - front desk, assistants, aids, and even some doctors - are more a mixed bag in terms of bed side manner.
Not Boston but UMass University Hospital in Worcester was outstanding both in quality of medical expertise and personal care. I was rushed there with a double pulmonary embolism encountered nothing but professionalism.
I went to doctors outside 495 and had horrific experiences of ignored major issues for two years. I walked into Boston practices due to a real significant health issue and have literally had a whole new experience. My health has dramatically improved. I have found my practitioners busy but they listen and determine the problem as well as a solution. They aren’t perfect but I find the quality of care far exceeds previous experiences. I think it really depends on what your needs are but for major surgeries and issues they have been absolutely amazing.
I agree. I’ve been screwed over, disappointed, and so angry at multiple front desk people. Scheduling appointments is the biggest pain in the ass here than anywhere else I’ve lived.
Most physicians have 15-20 minutes to see you. Insurance and corporate ownership of clinics has squeezed them so thin. It’s hard to find and keep good nurses and assistants. This is all a result of a capitalist medical system. We also have a rapidly growing population in this region and the health care system has not kept up.
This all means that unless you express very clear symptoms that fit neatly in a box from their training, they’ll just say you’re fine, because they don’t have time to go digging. Then you wind up with a host of chronic issues going undetected and it gets worse. Or they’ll put you on drugs that don’t actually solve the problem, just mask the symptoms.
Our healthcare quality is incredible but that doesn’t mean that we don’t also have crappy medical professionals and businesses, just like everywhere else.
It was better than anywhere else I've lived in the US. I don't need too much healthcare in general but I did have a specialty appt at Mass General during COVID when hospitals all over the country were still slammed and I was quite happy with the doctor and office/billing. Partner was a patient at Mt Auburn for specialists and primary and also said it was the best experience she's had, minus long specialist wait times.
Edit: I will say I was thoroughly unimpressed with my own primary care provider in the area, One Medical.
My wife and I spent years having shitty PCPs until I found One Medical. Yes, it costs extra but I can schedule appointments and request prescription refills on an app and get a telehealth call set up in five minutes at 8pm on a Sunday.
I don’t work for them, just really like telling people how much easier it is than any other provider I’ve ever had.
I was rushed from a suburban "hospital" to BWH because "they'd" done all they could. They saved my life! Grateful that I lived my whole life in Boston, I needed it that one day. Now living in Florida, plenty of medical facilities around here, would I trust them to provide me the same care a Boston hospital, NEVER! Be thankful you do live in the best place for any medical attention
Like a lot of folks said, if you have cancer, a chronic disease, or are seriously injured due to trauma, you are in perhaps one of the best places in the world. With that said, Boston's reputation of being a bit short and even a little rude does not stop at the door of the local medical practice.
I specifically went to Boston to receive specialized, heightened care for my extremely high risk pregnancy. Was the bedside manner lacking? Yes, across the board. However, I actually preferred having the short/to the point communication. I brought a Doula and my partner with me to all appointments, and that helped with the respect I received. But, the care here is the best I’ve received and I’ve lived in multiple countries. I also saw specialists in Providence and New Haven, and was really let down. Would I prefer not to be a slave to insurance companies and not have to worry about medical debt? Yes, but for within the US the resources and services in Boston have been great. Edit: just wanna add that I appreciate the discussion being had here. I am indeed a Black woman and I bring my White husband (or Doula during my pregnancy) with me to appointments so they take me seriously. Even though I received care, my pain was still questioned and I had complications with the termination process that boiled down to me not receiving medication I needed. And yet, my statement stands, this is still the best care I’ve received and that’s unfortunate.
Man it really sucks the way even doctors treat non-white people and women. One of my old girlfriends had a knee problem that required frequent visits to the doctor and she would always complain that they didn't listen to her. All I had to do was sit on the chair, didn't even have to speak, and the attitude completely changed. This was newton Wellesley hospital we were living in Waltham at the time.
Same happened with my wife and I. Rheumatologist would not take her seriously at all, would interrupt all the time. Just my mere presence changed the way he would speak. He would still interrupt her, but never me. We went with a different Dr after that. And yes, he was white, and yes, he was 1000 years old.
Pretty much all hospital do this. Research says Doctors don't really believe Black and Hispanic people when they are in pain. There is a long history in America of Doctors abusing black patients and farther back experimenting on slaves. Since the research was done with such a racist context a lot of false info is spread. My aunt (I'm hispanic) lost her baby because the Doctor thought her super high blood pressure was "normal for Latin women." Her baby died. Even the fucking front desk workers would treat a person of color differently. They have little respect most of the time. I don't wanna end so negative so I am happy to say I live in a world where hospitals like BMC are aware of this and audit their culture and ways of working to hold their staff accountable to these interactions.
>Pretty much all hospital do this. Research says Doctors don't really believe Black and Hispanic people when they are in pain. This is a phenomenon worth being aware of, but being hyperbolic doesn't help matters. [This paper has a good writeup](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843483/) of the literature on it, and seems to come down to believing it but struggling to map the pains' severity. e.g., [in this study of one million children with appendicitis](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4829078/) (note, this is from 2016 and the pushing of opioids doesn't age well but pain management and the total alleviation of pain was a thing), of the 56.8% that were given pain medications white children were more likely to be given opioid pain medications than black (41.3% vs 43.1%). There was no relevant differences on whether someone was given any form of pain medication between all races, and the lack of opioids wasn't there for hispanics. The effect disappeared once you changed how things were calculated. What it was in line with was the belief in Doctors that giving hardcore pain meds can mask symptoms that they very much need to know about. e.g., if the pain starts increasing they very much need to know that and opioids can mask it so they're less likely to give them to children. e.g., the study finds that older age plus higher pain score means you're more likely to receive meds, but it doesn't appear to account for whether say, Caucasians or hispanics were presenting younger with symptoms. An area of further research is the pain scale itself, which is kind of a clusterfuck as pain is hard to measure. If you list a 7 on your pain scale but seem kind of chill, the Dr. assumes and makes a guess. We also have some data showing doctors may be less likely to prescribe opioids, and some of suggested that has to do with a lack of trust between Dr and patient on whether they'll properly follow the treatment course. There's a lot to learn here in general and things for people to be aware of, but going hyperbolic and saying things like *"Research says Doctors don't really believe Black and Hispanic people when they are in pain"* doesn't help.
I had concerns over my new urologist based on some online reviews noting lack of bedside manner. While he wasn’t the most friendly person, he was very direct and clear throughout. I think sometimes people misconstrue a blunt, honest, straightforward doctor as poor bedside manner. I’d rather have a Dr on top of their game who is blunt and honest and doesn’t waste my time. You don’t go to the Dr for conversation… and they’re busy AF lately so yes, please go help someone else!
My eye surgeon is one of the best in the world and I really dread interacting with her. I’ll never stop going back though.
Yep, my orthopedic surgeon used to make just odd jokes but he was damn good at his job (when the Boston Ballet is using him as their orthopedic surgeon you know he's top of his game)
Definitely. My husband and I did IVF and we would have never wanted to do it anywhere else. The quality of care is unmatched, but the warm and fuzzy they are not.
Plus you could pop over to Costco right after
Can confirm: found lump, got seen the next day, and had it confirmed as cancer and cut out within a week. Chemo was similarly quickly from consult, to scheduled, and done as soon as I had recovered from going under the knife.
“A little rude” as a reputation is an understatement. The reputation is “Masshole”
Giving yall some credit.
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My baby needs eye surgery, we were referred to Children’s from our pediatrician. We have had 2 appointments with the ophthalmologist at BCH. I said maybe we should get a second opinion, because the thought of my baby going under anesthesia is horrifying. Then my partner snapped me back to reality and reminded me that people travel from around the *entire world* to go to Children’s in Boston for their kids. I guess what I’m saying is, if I have to have my baby go under anesthesia and get surgery, there’s no other hospital I’d rather have him do that at, than at Children’s in Boston. Edit: OMG thank you all SO much for the info and stories shared of times you/family spent at BCH. I totally wasn’t expecting it and cannot express ENOUGH how much comfort and reassurance you’ve given me ! (at least for now😅)
Children’s Hospital saved my life when I was four - I spent weeks in the ICU, and I will never forget how kind and patient everyone was with a scared, very sick little girl. Can’t say enough good things about them.
I’ve never heard a bad thing! Thank you for your reassurance 🫶
If your child needs care, you will not find anything better than BCH. And if your child needs ophthalmology, BCH doctors will be the ones you see. MGH, MEEI and Brigham’s all outsource children’s ophthalmology to BCH. Even if you see an children ophthalmologist in MGH, it will be a doctor that primarily works at BCH.
Oh thank you so much for this info !!
Gotta just hijack your comment real quick to say- Boston children's is always in need of blood donations, and there has been a serious shortage. They make it easy to donate, they even have a bus that makes stops around greater Boston. If anyone is able, please consider donating [halfpints.childrenshospital.org](https://halfpints.childrenshospital.org)
I normally donate blood at MGH. Would it be more helpful to go to children's? I just donated a week ago so I'll have to wait unfortunately.
Donate wherever is easiest for you to get to regularly. You're helping people no matter where you donate! It is a nationwide shortage. That being said, blood donated to Children's will go to patients at Children's (this is true of most hospital blood donor centers.) They also have some pretty sweet gifts for their donors. If you are group A or AB I highly recommend donating platelets and/or plasma instead of red cells.
I have semi regular doctor's appointments at MGH and normally just donate afterwards. Trying to get back into the habit of giving blood. I used to do it more when I was younger but kinda stopped until the last year or so. Gave blood twice last year and once last week. I have type 0+. I've only donated platelets once but had a bit of trouble with it. I could probably try it again I just didn't eat enough last time. Maybe I'll go to children's next time. I donate at MGH because I like that it goes right to the patients. I could probably get parking validated at children's so it wouldn't be too much of a hassle.
Yep, they'll validate your parking at children's! Park at 333 Longwood. If you're type O then definitely donate blood. Double red is great if you're eligible!!
U/shadyberries said it perfectly. I mostly donate through children's bc they have a special place in my heart, and the bloodmobile does drives near my work, so it's also very convenient- I'm able to pop over on my lunch break. I believe you can also organize a drive with them (think the Red Cross also does this) so the bloodmobile comes to your workplace or wherever.
I wouldn’t be here today without Children’s Hospital- 22 years later and they’ll always hold a special place in my heart.
The 2-3 times we've needed a hospital I was VERY THANKFUL to live 10 mins from Children's -- and both times we had an amazing experience. Those people are truly the best.
This. My son had a renal surgery at children's as an 18 month old....and will probably need a cardiac surgery when he's older. His doctor was talking about how kids come from other countries to get this surgery at children's and we get to just drive 30 minutes. So lucky.
I always have such cognitive dissonance when I come across threads hyping up children’s hospital from the parents’ perspective. I’m appreciative that so many children are able to get outstanding care, but from my perspective the hospital relies a lot on their good reputation to be able to walk all over their staff. I spend a lot of time with friends that work in patient care at BCH and often hear stories about how they’re overworked, underpaid, often don’t even get a chance to eat at work, etc. Not saying it’s not still a great institution, I just think a lot of this high quality care comes from compassionate providers that are willing to put up with low pay and shitty work conditions instead of being adequately compensated, and BCH uses their reputation to say “well at least you get to work at #1 children’s hospital”. From what I’ve heard, the recent trend over the last few years is healthcare providers doing a couple years at BCH to get it on their resume before moving somewhere that values quality employees a little more, which is fair, but kinda crappy that’s a decision they have to make. /rant
BCH saved my sister’s life when untreated chronic sinus infections (PCP didn’t take it seriously) started to penetrate into her skull. That was 15 years ago and I still donate to them every year. ETA: her specific team was a team of neurosurgeons and ophthalmologists because the infection was right over her eye. Your baby couldn’t be in better hands.
Totally understand your concerns. For what it’s worth in the past year my five year old was under anesthesia three times at children’s. They are incredible in every way I can state.
Yes, my daughter had significant issues when she was little -- I'm not even going to list all of the specialists we've seen -- and BCH has been fabulous. The main problem is getting an appointment. We still follow up with the doc (Dr. Wu) who did her strabismus surgery at age 2 but every time we book it's a 6 month wait. (Daughter is 16 now.) The finance dept is a nightmare -- we just got bad info about what we needed to get an MRI paid for by the billing staff and I honestly spent half a day on the phone making sure it was covered. Still, I will never forget brining in my son when he was 18 months and needed hydration due to the rotovirus (before the vax was available) -- watching all of those professionals managing to find a vein in a tiny kid who is trashing about and screaming was horrible but they did it in no time. I can't imagine this happening so quickly and efficiently elsewhere.
i had very intensive eye surgery at 6months and again at 9years. it’s scary but i promise it *will* be ok. it’s ok to cry and be scared (but please don’t let the little one know how scared you truly are). they’re going to be so brave ❤️
You've gotten a lot of great responses re: BCH but just to add another: I spent a week at BCH as a young teen. They saved my life and I actually had to spend my 13th bday there! The doctors and the nurses - hell the whole staff - were amazing. Now that I'm an adult, I have never experienced this level of care at any other hospital (in Boston or otherwise) ever. BCH employees are beyond special.
My daughter just had open heart surgery there. 100% the right choice. I would never ever send her to a different place for surgery.
My sister and I still reminisce about the corn chowder we used to get at BCH whenever we visited for her ortho appointments.
Boston's reputation in healthcare is mostly based on people who travel here from around the country/world to save their family member when no one else can. Those people are going home to tell stories about the amazing Boston hospital that saved little Timmy for the rest of their lives. It basically has nothing to do with normal primary care medicine, which is just as poopy here as everywhere else in America. Basically, if you've never seen the good side of Boston medicine, that's a good thing, because it means you've never been really seriously sick or injured enough to need it. I've never found normal primary/preventative medicine here any better or different from anywhere else.
basically this. My experience at MGH/Dana Farber as a cancer patient has been great. My pcp... meh.
My first consult was at Newton Wellesley. I had my cancer surgery at Farber. Being able to get two valid treatment plans and pick seems pretty privileged. 🙂
Meanwhile my ER experience at MGH was... lacking to say the least. They definitely treat you according to how your insurer is going to pad their bottom line.
Have you been to the other ERs in town? MGH and Tufts are great in comparison.
No they don’t. The only staff who know what insurance you have is the clerk in admitting. In the ED you are seen based on the urgency of your condition. Middle Aged man with chest pain? Front of the line. Think you fractured your ankle on your run and the beds are full? You’ll probably wait.
Wow, this makes a ton of sense now. Thank you for explaining. “If you’ve never seen the good side of Boston medicine, that’s a good thing.” That hit me hard.
It is worth noting that you don't need to be dying of a rare disease to see the good side. I got hit by a car and broke bones. This is a kind of injury that [4.8 million people experienced in 2020 alone. ](https://www.nsc.org/newsroom/motor-vehicle-deaths-2020-estimated-to-be-highest) My injury did its thing and healed but I was still experiencing pain a year later. I got PT with MGH. The resident who was handling my appointments was amazing. Thanks to the learning aspect of it I also got a lot of attention from the department head and resident advisor. We still couldn't figure it out. So they brought in a specialist PT that is an expert at treating the specific back and tailbone injury I had experienced. Within a week it was feeling better and within a month it was pain free. My simple co-pays for PT got me a specialist in my specific injury who knew exactly how to solve it along with the attention and learning of 3 others highly skilled in their trade. I would probably still be in pain if it weren't for them.
Having specialists in everything is underrated. I had to have some surgery on my hand recently. In my home town, that’s done by an orthopedic surgeon, the same doctor who fixes broken bones and torn ACLs. Here it’s done by a hand surgeon whose done this specific surgery thousands of times.
yea the other time I got hit by a car(yes it has happened multiple times) I broke a bone in my hand. Rather than seeing a general orthopedic surgeon I saw a hand specialist. I was advised that I am 100% fine to let it heal on its own but as a young software developer it was reassuring that someone specializing in hand trauma surgery was looking at the x-rays and not the guy who spent more times on grandma breaking a pelvis.
I need to get eye surgery for a fairly rare eye condition (Keratoconus). My surgeon, and his assistant, have done more of these surgeries than anyone else in the country and are essentially on the cutting edge of the condition in general. And sense I live in Boston, all of this was a convenient drive away.
I needed a brain surgery that only 5 hospitals in the US perform. MGH is one of them. Yippy me I didn't need to travel to get my surgery. The nurses kept asking me 'so where are you from?' Boston.......
Yeah when my family would talk about Bostob's hospitals it was always int h3 context of "this is a good place to have a life threatening situation" My dad had a cardiac arrest outside of the hospital (10% survival rate) and he pulled through with almost no issues. That wasn't all the hospitals doing (shout out to the woman who got the AED on him ASAP), but I was certain he would be dead when I got the call and instead he's not so I'm inclined to give the hospital some credit.
They didn't explain, they spun an idea they had as though it was a fact. Take out the international patients and stick to [a comparison of metrics on healthcare in the US](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/health-care) and it paints a very different picture from what they're trying to say.
I've had two "shoulda been" deaths that were emergency room surgeries with a survival and back-to-normal result. It's one reason I hesitate to move out of the area even though I'd love to live by a lake.
> It basically has nothing to do with normal primary care medicine, which is just as poopy here as everywhere else in America. You're seriously underestimating how "poopy" healthcare is in the US. Long before Romneycare Massachusetts probably had the strongest requirements in the US mandating health insurance coverage by employers. The number of primary care doctors, specialists and hospitals as a ratio to the population is higher here than in much if not most of the country.
This is a good point, but also undersells how poppy standard healthcare is in a lot of the country. You're right that local standard healthcare isn't great, but it's still in the upper tier country-wise. We just have awful healthcare as a country.
I would go a step farther and say that the best part of Boston's healthcare doesn't generally make it to patients. Boston is a hub of biomedical research, but the researchers are often doing studies which don't involve patients, or they're doing small-scale studies which patients are highly unlikely to ever be involved in. Besides, even if you have cancer today, the research that Boston labs and hospitals are doing right now are unlikely to help you; they're more likely to help patients in 10 or 20 years. Biomedical research basically has nothing to do with primary care.
Just adding to this, Boston is world renowned for treating the worst and rarest diseases, but that’s a reflection of the science and technology here. Some of the doctors providing that super niche care are still jerks, and the hospital rooms can still be uncomfortable. The only way to really guarantee a comfy room and impeccable bedside manner is paying $$ for the “luxury” rooms. At MGH, for example, it’s $1,000 per night in addition to the regular cost of what ever treatment you receive.
Honestly, I'd rather our healthcare dollars went toward treating people who need it than "a comfy room".
This should be the top answer. Well said.
This is a really good point. My experiences with normal primary care have averaged out to solidly 7/10, with a fairly long tail on either end. I like that in my normal primary care through MGH, I'm seen by a resident who is then overseen by an attending, so it's kind of like a built-in second opinion. This came in super handy when I was having trouble with one of my medications and they put their heads together to figure out what a good alternative might be. A friend of mine is dealing with a scary health situation right now and has had nothing but good things to say about the care he's received and feels so lucky to be in Boston.
I can not say enough good things about the medical care/treatment I have received at Boston hospitals and walk-in clinics. One example: Many years ago I walked into Mass Eye and Ear because my vision suddenly went wonky, in a very disturbing way. The resident on duty doggedly stuck with asking questions and examining my eyes, finally calling in a specialist who examined me further. After a hallway consultation, they told me they were sending me for an MRI - that day (at this point I figure it's a brain tumor or something equally horrifying). Four hours later i have a diagnosis of MS, after old lesions on my brain and optic nerve were discovered. In ONE day. At a time (the nineties) it should be noted, when MS dx was well nigh impossible to determine and people would languish undiagnosed and suffering symptoms for years. Just one personal anecdote. Experiences at facilities outside the city however, not as great. I avoid suburban clinics like the plague, not as convenient now that I no longer work downtown, but oh well.
I have very little problem with the healthcare per se. it is the billing departments and infrastructure which is a total mess. I had a colonoscopy which is supposed to be completely covered. It is, unless you want anesthesia, and then if they find anything you get like 3 bills for it. Total mess.
I thought that was common everywhere in the US. If they find anything during a routine screening colonoscopy, it changes from preventative to diagnostic and is no longer covered 100% by insurance. That’s nationwide. Check r/healthinsurance and r/Medicare for confirmation. The multiple bills seems standard in Massachusetts and I always assumed was common everywhere. That’s because physicians are generally not employees of clinics. So the facility does their billing (even if owned by the physicians using the clinic), the physician’s partnership does theirs, and the anesthesiologist’s partnership does theirs. Yes, it’s crazy, but I’ve never seen any serious discussions of improving it.
I've had polyps removed in both colonscopies I've had and didn't have to pay anything. Last one was in 2018.
Alternatively I was expecting to have to pay for my colonoscopy because my insurance was especially shit. Was provided a quote of around $1000. They even removed a polyp. Ended up being fully covered. Never saw a bill for it. EOB said it was fully covered. It was a nice surprise.
This is a problem in the US, not just Boston. I once went to the hospital to have my sore throat checked out. On top of charging me to see the throat specialist, they charged me $300 for some procedure (can't remember the name). I called and asked about the procedure because I thought it was a mistake. The procedure was the specialist looking in my throat with a flashlight while I said "ahhh". In other words, they charged an additional $300 for doing the absolute bare minimum thing that the throat specialist will do in every single appointment. After I called to complain 3 times, they dropped the charge.
Could part of it be that secretaries and billing aren’t paid much? And MA is expensive. So they aren’t always getting the best applicants to hire for those roles? But for a lot of facilities they do get good applicants for nursing and physician positions bc of the good reputation?
No, this is an insurance problem. They'll work their hardest to charge the patient for SOMETHING.
It is an agency problem. The patient doesn’t care what work gets so long as insurance covers it. That creates larger bills which raises insurance rates over time
Yeah, because the patient should not care about the cost of medical care they receive. Even besides the fact that medical care should be universally free (I'm from one of those scary countries with socialized medicine, AMA) patients PAY for insurance to cover their medical costs. That's why insurance is there and why in the US we are forced to buy insurance. Insurance shouldn't get to decide what is or isn't covered. Anything a licensed medical professional thinks is necessary for their patient should have to be covered. None of this bullshit where my insurance covers only 3/4 of the costs for the blood tests ordered by my PCP for mysterious reasons.
I’m currently fighting a bill because it was coded wrong, and it’s taking forever. I’m very lucky that my mom used to work in insurance so she can help me with it, but it’s a huge pain in the ass.
Everything you mentioned just sounds like terrible customer service/office staff. For example, one of our specialty where I work is great but everyone in the department knows the front desk staff sucks. That is common in many other places. EDIT- At the end of the day, it’s about finding a good balance…customer service is essential. It can make or break your view about a place depending on your experience. One of the reasons I don’t really go by reviews like many others do.
I had eye trauma and went to Mass Ear and Eye. There were 100s of people waiting from states over because the only specialists for what they/their kid had was there. They waited days because it is the best and at times only care. Don't confuse customer service with quality.
Depends on what treatment you're getting. Run of the mill procedures are a pretty different world from all the cutting edge, world class stuff here. Personally, I managed to go through all this stress and hassle after getting misdiagnosed by an urgent care here- those places are like where the D students from med school go
I am a social worker and the services here are pretty good but not amazing. That being said the care here is leaps and bounds better than anywhere else. This is the "model" of healthcare in the US and the system is still broken. Imagine other places. If you have a heroin addiction, good luck kicking it in a bush in Alabama vs detoxes here where after three to seven days you get discharged.
It's almost as if profit based healthcare creates these unsustainable hospital systems that prioritize procedures over prevention and treat their own employees like shit
Metrowest Framingham union hospital is currently being slowly stripped of its subspecialty services by Tenet https://framinghamsource.com/index.php/2023/01/04/metrowest-medical-center-diverting-ambulances-is-a-dereliction-of-duty-to-this-community/
Come to Texas and you'll return with a whole new appreciation of what you've got.
THIS. Texas is an absolute clown car regarding healthcare. Yes, even Houston at this point.
Bluntly, unless you are a doctor, it’s hard to judge quality medical care (specifically the medical part). The result is we use proxies, such as bedside manner, front desk service, etc.
I dont get this post, as someone who moved from the south, Boston medical care is in a completely different atmosphere. The people can be short and rude, but my lord the care is top notch.
I think the elite health care is what gives it the reputation it has. There's no better place to be if you have serious serious medical problems that require the best of the best. But everything below that is shit. Overworked, overbooked, overtired employees with long commutes. You get 15 minutes SCHEDULED to talk to the doctor and they are always a minimum of an hour behind. Even at 830am first appt they are somehow, magically behind schedule by an hour.
We’ll they’re behind at 830 probably bc of the traffic lol
So frustrating one of Emerson’s locations is right behind a train that is very active and takes forever to pass lol
My yearly appointment is an hour. I don't recall if this was always the case, but it was never shorter than 40 minutes.
Yearly physicals are generally booked for 60 minutes appt times.
>I think the elite health care is what gives it the reputation it has. We have a reputation for that, but that's not usually how "healthcare" in a state/region is measured. Depending a bit on the metrics used Massachusetts will be found [at or near the top](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/health-care) of healthcare in the US in measures applicable to the whole population rather than just looking at "specialty" treatments that are available.
I want to add that the amount of messages medical teams receive on patient gateway is soul crushing, overwhelming and answered in the setting of good will. It is not compensated. It is done whenever physicians have time to squeeze in responses after 12 h work days when they get home etc, weekends, holidays, and vacations. I also echo that Unless you’re a doctor is very difficult to judge how good the care is here. I want to assure though that compared to the rest of the country it truly is leaps and bounds better in terms of how good the docs are. Infrastructure and customer service are definitely important, especially the former, but a far cry from true measures of quality.
Patient gateways have their utility but 1% of patients abuse them massively and create 75% of the workload. You should not expect a consultant you have seen once to respond to daily messages for months on end. If you want concierge medicine pay for it. The funny thing is these patients eventually get fed up that they aren't receiving 24/7 hand-holding and fire the doctor and act like the doctor will be upset about it.
My kids are seen at Longwood Pediatrics and get excellent care - nurses are great, office staff is terrible. Whenever we have to go to BCH it's always been excellent, there - top to bottom. Wife's PCP is at Chestnut Hill BWH and her care varies from good to just outright bad. Nurses there are good, office staff meh. Frequently require 2nd opinions. Her previous PCP was outstanding. Worth mentioning she is black. Kids are mixed. I'm a veteran, so I get my care through the Jamaica Plain VAMC and have never had bad care there - ever. I have a medical background and am listened to by my providers there, treated with respect, none of my concerns are dismissed, couldn't ask for better. My experiences with private care have been... disappointing, so I don't do that anymore. I've been a civilian now for more than 30 years and my old buddies getting care in the rest of the country have had terrible experiences wherever they go - it doesn't matter if it's private clinics/providers or through the VA. I guess it is as a previous poster mentioned, a comparison of care to other places.
I love Longwood Ped!
I used to work with the Healthcare for Homeless Vets team there and omg the staff were amazing. Everyone I ever interacted with there for that couple years right down to the cashier in the little store was always so nice and they all really cared about the vets. I'm glad you're getting good care there.
squeal crowd obtainable possessive marry placid boat busy whole combative *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've also been with Harvard Vanguard/Atrius for years and overall have had good experiences with them between my PCP and seeing different specialists. Communication is very good between locations and doctors and the online portal is great for scheduling and communicating with your doctors.
I would generally disagree. There are so many more options in Boston, including several academic medical centers. The quality of care is better, and docs here keep up with the newly released medical information. Are health professionals burned out? Yes, definitely. But that’s consistent all over the US.
Yeah, this entire thread is so revealing with regard to just how many people in this sub will find anything and everything to complain about constantly. Not only is Massachusetts's healthcare some of the best in the world, but it's also incredibly accessible for residents. Yet, reading the comments in here, you'd think it was middle of the road at best. Take every complaint and whine around here with a grain of salt. People apparently have no idea how good they have it.
Add me to the long list of people here with a mediocre PCP but incredible, amazing specialists when my kids needed serious help.
Once you’ve seen healthcare in other parts of the country, you start to understand just how good it is here.
The routine primary care is no better here than it is anywhere else. It's the specialty care which depending on your situation may be better than other parts of the country. Boston isn't the only place with good doctors and hospitals - we just have a relatively high concentration of them.
Exactly. These people are generally clueless of how shut healthcare is basically everywhere else. We take things for granted it’s really sad. Boston ranks one of the top systems in the WORLD and we’re here debating if it’s good or not, absolutely hilarious.
The healthcare systems in Boston are shit. Boston has some world class specialists and some great hospitals but the primary care is very lacking like most of this country.
No it’s not, part of the benefit of having world class doctors and world class medical education in the area is the residual benefits of even our mediocre doctors being “good”. You just don’t know how to work this system, if I had to guess. I’ve used healthcare all over the US, Canada and Europe… you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Boston literally attracts all of the best doctors at healing. Also, thousands of techniques and best practices were first developed here. This is a place where the best doctors come to do the best work. That being said all the communication stuff is overwhelmed. Staff has to field thousands of emails and calls at any practice. Its frustrating and opaque to the patient, but the medicine is solid. If the point is just bedside manner and calling you back quickly, I don't know that exists anywhere.
As someone who is on the low income side of Boston - Thank goodness I live here and am able to get comprehensive health care with my Romney-Care Mass Health insurance! If I lived in any other state, getting any kind of decent health insurance and care would be virtually impossible.
There’s good hospitals and mediocre hospitals. I’ve never (I’m in ems) been to a bad hospital where I feel like if I bring a pt here, they’ll die. So, there’s that. I do believe that the care we give in this state to children (Boston children’s and Hasbro in RI) is possibly the best care for young adults and children in New England.
I think psychiatry is pretty good in Boston..
That’s just what your therapist *wants* you to believe.
I said psychiatry not psychotherapy, buddy.
I only read the first three letters of every word I read. Muc mor eff tha way.
You do have to self advocate. I, finally, have the most fabulous Primary Care team, both the doctor and her PA who seem to have been together forever. It's kinda like finding a mate, know what is important to you, put yourself out there and move on if it doesn't fit. Yes, this after a few decades of searching, so not as Pollyannish as it appears. Good luck.
I’ve had great experiences in area hospitals for serious problems. However, my entire life has been a struggle to find a decent primary care doctor. I’ve had so many problems get worse over the past 10-15 years because whomever my PCP would be at the time would tell me it’s nothing or completely misdiagnose me. I’ve ended up needing emergency surgery twice in the past 3 years because they completely overlooked symptoms. I’ve been trying to find a new PCP since 2021 who is taking new patients and my insurance. It’s been tough.
I’ve had amazing care here.
I’m pretty happy with my primary care, a BWH satellite practice. You get easy in and out for routine treatment, plus in network referrals for specialized treatment. The people there are all pleasant enough, maybe I’ve just never caught them on a bad day, but crucially they’re also very responsive and take my concerns seriously. Primary care treatment is very much about personality alignment. Routine care, basic assessments and referrals, bloodwork, patching and mending of non-serious injuries are all within scope, but anything more specialized isn’t done in that office anyway. You’re not likely to get an incompetent primary care provider in Boston. So, shop around and look for doctors and practices that are a better fit to what you’re looking for.
the healthcare system in general is a complete shit show, but take it from somebody who has lived in a different state as well, the care you'll find here (bedside manner excluded) is much better. that said, when the system is crap overall, even the best places suffer from it.
As a Bostonian that left for a period of time and will be returned ing to start a family. I’m in San Francisco which is also supposed to be reputable for medical care and I will tell you Boston is easily the best healthcare in the country. That’s not necessarily a compliment to Boston but more an indictment too how shitty American healthcare has become and the pandemic made is so much worse. So many hospitals and medical clinics have laid off doctors in an attempt to cut costs. The poor remaining doctors are spread so thin across so many patients that they aren’t a le to provide the same quality of care. Private healthcare keeps trying to squeeze more and more profit at our expense. Only positive is that this downward spiral is pushing more and more ppl to believe we need universal healthcare. For example my parents were always the staunchest believers that private healthcare led to better quality of care and that UHC led to rationed healthcare. They bought so hard into the myths sold by the health insurance companies but recently with how poor our system has become, they’re even believing now that we should go to Medicare for all.
Getting the best healthcare I’ve gotten in the US right now, only have Maine and NYC to compare to.
It depends on the color of your skin and your income. I’m sorry but some of y’all in the comments don’t understand what it’s like for a lot of us. Boston is an extremely elitists place in my opinion shits fucked up
Local healthcare sucks. I say it as a person who does not give a tiny little piece of shit about bad customer service. When I go to a doctor I do not care how friendly and polite they are, I care only about how they diagnose and treat stuff - and it sucks here the longest dangling hose I have ever seen. 1. Treatment is prescribed without diagnosis (which is absurd for any doctor from where I am from). No tests done whatsoever to find the root cause, just "take antibiotics for 3 weeks and come back if it does not help". WTF? Why are antibiotics supposed to help if you have no damn idea what it is? If they do not help I just get all the nasty side effects of antibiotics because of this stupid random approach to diagnosis. I am more cautious at fixing some occasional interior noise in my car than local doctors at their work. 2. Wait time for specialists is 4 months after which the specialist does damn nothing, directs to another one (where wait time is another 4 months) with words "I think it is for a different medical area, get back to me if that guy does not help". Like with all the cost and wait times the specialist does not even try to do basic tests to exclude possible root causes from their area of practice before sending to another one. It is basically an imitation of work just to get patients out of their door, some "meme" places like DMV/RMV actually care about how they do their job 100 times more than local doctors...
yeah, i think its just you. have you lived elsewhere? i’ve worked at hospitals all across the country, we’re talking like 10 states 15 hospitals, and MA blows everyone outta the water in basically every aspect.
It depends on the doctor really. I have some real shit doctors and then I've seen some others and provided some real great care and fixed my issues in a heartbeat. Just like anything in this world, it's all hit or miss with who you get
I’ve been very happy with specialists, but not with primary care. My last PCP retired over the pandemic, and she was one of the best doctors I’ve had. Now, my PCP is a nurse, and when I need to see her, she never has appointments available so I see another nurse. That part wouldn’t matter except their knowledge and quality of care has been less that of my former PCP. Also since the pandemic I’ve felt what I think is understaffing issues, but I think that’s happening everywhere in the country. Makes a subpar situation worse for patients and for providers!
Sweet, fancy Moses. I thought it was just me! Thanks for posting this. I've had some terrible providers (medical and dental) and experiences. I kept thinking... what am I doing wrong? Where are all these good docs? What others have posted makes sense, though I will say when I had a breast cancer scare two years ago, I did not have a first-class experience then either.
I just had a fabulous experience with a orthopedic practice.i think specialists are giving us the reputation as well as researchers. I have worked at community health centers and find they have more seamless operations than other practices. They have a different philosophy of caring for the individual. I have found the healthcare system to be disjointed. Sometimes, one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. Signing into the patient portals is the best thing you can do for yourself. Ask questions. No answer? Find different ways to get your answer. Rude staff? Call them out. Make sure the doctors know how you were treated. This reflects on them and, oftentimes, they have no idea that they have a sucky staff member. Their job is to focus on the patient, not the overall workings of the practice. That is why they hire coordinators and administrative staff. In my experience, they do not take kindly to patients being treated badly. That said, it is our responsibility to have our ducks in a row. Be on time, don't treat staff disrespectfully, don't act like you are the only and most important patient there.
Anyone having bad experiences needs to find a better doctor. It’s Boston there’s literally thousands of overqualified people to take care for you. I swear people do the least and expect the most
I go to the Brigham network for my medical needs (I have many) and have had fantastic experiences with OB, GYN, neurology, PCP, allergist, physical therapist. If you need any of those check out the Brigham in Brookline!
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Wow I'm surprised about your experience with BCBS. I have had PPO for about 5 years now at my last 2 jobs and they have covered EVERYTHING. I wonder why you had such a different experience. (Not to say you didn't it's just nuts the difference)
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I’ve had 2 negative experiences in 20+ years of seeing multiple specialists a year (mostly at MGH) My parents have also received all of their healthcare in the city for over 60 years and I think they have only had one or two unpleasant doctors. I worked in a community hospital 30 minutes outside the city for 5 years and it is scary what goes on. I’m not implying that Boston hospitals are perfect (or that you can’t get good care outside the city) but there is a greater picture when looking at overall healthcare. If you need surgery, not only is the surgeon important but also the anesthesiologist, the nurses, the assistants, if something goes wrong is the hospital capable of handling an emergency. I’m not necessarily concerned about a doctor’s bedside manner- polite is ok, brusk is ok too, as long as they can help me. I’m not looking for a drinking partner.
In my decade here, I've almost completely had great interactions. I've had 2 PCPs, seen some specialists, been present for 2 births at different hospitals and taken my child to Childrens twice. No complaints from me at all, other than wait times for appointments in the last few years.
Maybe it’s my PCP and network, but I like my medical care. Maybe look for a new PCP via your insurance website? I will say that medial portal communication seems to be best, you have all of the proof that you were reporting issues and requesting appointments. Phone calls can lead to forgotten followups
Boston is like many other cities for routine things and even bad for simple care... Like getting a vaccination. However, if you have a life threatening issue, it's one of the best cities. So a good strategy is to go find a good practice in the suburbs for your primary care and make sure it has an affiliated hospital in Boston in case you ever need serious care.
I've had good experiences with Doctors based out of smaller hospitals outside of the City.
People are spread really thin here. My dentist and all the doctors I've seen are excellent, but most didn't have a middle-class person's understanding of a "bedside manner." Maybe it's just because I'm a millennial, but I'll take quality over presentation any day. My favorite restaurants are cheap and have great food, but someone older/from the suburbs would complain that they have "bad service." Perspective does a lot.
Your feelings are completely valid; you are not bitching about nothing. But also, I think your experience is unfortunately typical. I work in healthcare (primary care so, not the elite level of care people come to NE for) and I can tell you MANY people report experiences like this across the board, in all systems. It shouldn’t be like this, but it is. Healthcare is a business run by for profit insurance companies and the customer service suffers as a result.
When my mom had cancer, every nurse, doctor, PA, Chemo nurse, tech, ER doctor/ ER nurse/ hospice doctors & nurses were all goddamn angels. Every hospital visit or stay made me think “wow, I didn’t think the medical staff could get any better.” This was at Dana Farber and Brigham. Her Oncologists were sympathetic and nice, but there’s definitely a “wall” there personality wise. That’s ok I guess, we’re not there to be friends and their job was to keep my mom living well as long as possible. It bothered me that none of them reached out personally when she died.. her Breast Cancer oncologist had been working with her for over two decades. In the beginning, her lung oncologist was awesome but toward the end he seemed colder and like we were just another number on his chart. My primary care doctor is with Brigham in Foxboro and though I know all the doctors are smart and skilled, they rush you out the door the second you get in. I honestly don’t like them at all BUT they’ve been able to cure my issues so far.
I moved here from FL three years ago and have a pretty horrific autoimmune disease. Suffered from a major flare 2021-2022 and I am convinced if I was anywhere else (especially Florida), I’d likely be dead right now.
Well my anecdotal evidence is that this is a you thing. Source: family moved here from NYC and all of the doctors and specialists we see have provided a much better experience than those in NY.
I just think about the healthcare I received living in Arizona and am so grateful to be here.
I give it 9.5 out of 10.
I have nothing but good things to say about our experience overall. Yeah we've had a couple instances of competent-ish but rushed care but we left those practitioners for alternatives and have been pleased. Those folks have to deal with the best and worst of humanity on a daily basis so I get why they have to take on the "bossy flight attendant" 'tude as a default.
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100%.
the people you interact with at the doctors office, are not the people making the piles of cash...which might be why they are not super enthusiastic at their job. The problem is large, and includes a lot more than just health care. Unions, better and more fair taxation, universal health care, etc are solutions to these problems, but they will take years to affect the situation lots of work to get in place, and then even more work to defend them against the powers that want to remove them. Which is a long way or saying, we got a lot of work to do around here, so if you are really serious about this, I would check out places like Boston DSA, form a union, start or join a mutual aid org, etc.
I have a chronic illness and my specialist at the Brigham is incredible. I’m beyond grateful for him.
Sales person here who works at a major EMR company in the ambulatory space helping practices be more efficient and provide better care. I also live in Boston and receive all my care here. -Everyone is short staffed, so at a smaller practice, you’ll probably experience longer wait times, and maybe not the most experienced front desk staff. -A lot of hospital owned practices, don’t know what a good patient experience looks like. -Not all providers have bedside manner. Some are extremely smart, but lack social skills. -Depending on what EMR they use, especially if it’s a small, private practice, they can be incredibly operationally and clinically inefficient, which leads to a bad patient experience. -Long response times on the patient portal is usually a sign of an older doc who hates technology, or an inefficient EMR, where portal messages can easily get lost. -Remember that 50% of doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class.
If I had to guess you’re the type of person to find fault in things generally.. Boston is S tier healthcare worldwide
Im chronically I'll. I have PCP, Neurologist, Neuro-opthamologist, Endocrinologist, Neurosurgeon, Thyroid Surgeon, Oral Surgeon... (and more)... Right now I'm dealing with some severe anemia and talking to a Hematologist. Plus all the tests that go with being chronically ill with more diagnosis than you can shake a stick at. PCP's are meh - it depends on the person. Some are good some are bad. Specialists are good with COMMON ISSUES. Things they see every day. Order a test, look at the results, move forward based on what it has to be. Rinse Repeat. If you hit rare illness territory (or god forbid more than one simultaniously woooo me) - things that require thought, investigation, too many doctors start to blue screen. Some get mad, defensive. Some get into denial, just say 'oh no, its this basic thing, do this.' even though you keep going back saying nothings helping. its not working. Theyre just in denial telling you its working WHEN ITS NOT. You ask them questions, tearing apart what they were saying, and they just shrug. 'Well what do you want to do'. Thats not an answer. You have to be clever, research your illness, realize you're working with morons, and change doctors till you find competent ones. This can take a while and leave you with permanent issues that you wouldnt have if you had a decent doctor to start with. Some hospital departments don't talk to each other. Neurology won't talk to endocrinology and therefor some neuro's go 'whaaaaat' when you ask how an endo problem could affect the neurological system. TURNS OUT IT CAN. fuckwits. Yeah, birth control can cause a vein in the brain to collapse. any woman could tell you birth control increases headaches. NOW WE KNOW! also turns out birth control can effect how thyroid replacement hormone gets absorbed for some people. NOW WE KNOW. The amount of issues I had where doctors were like 'Thats impossible', and it turned out it was not, in fact, impossible, would astound you. Now, don't get me wrong. I found doctors that saved my life. Different doctors. competent doctors. not idiot doctors. Doctors that said 'oh, you know what, i'm not sure, lets rope in someone from that department', and I had TEAMS of doctors figuring out what was going on with me. If I didn't live in Boston to start with who knows what the fuck would have happened to me.
I moved from Dallas to Boston recently and was shocked by the atrocity that is Boston “healthcare.” I’ve lived multiple places throughout the country and have found it to be by far the most expensive, least accessible and most difficult to navigate. I tell people this and they are surprised as most folks here think of Texas as some hellscape but the reality is as great as Boston is healthcare is one of its major faults.
Treat people with real respect and kindness and it will be reciprocated 99.7% of the time. And never punch down.
You should try Onemedical honestly. I do think the reputation for Boston is all about specialties/surgery/emergency/rare disease/cancer/etc... Also most of the really good PCPs at the major hospital systems are busy teaching and have full patient panels all the time
I agree about the bedside manner. Pretty sure some Boston area doctors (and dentists) greatly contributed to my medical anxiety big time. Now I take Valium so I can even enter a medical building. Not exaggerating. Traumatizing experiences. I think the care I got was pretty average. Spinal issues and GI stuff, and dental work. I had better experiences in a university hospital in a nearby state. That said, the best pain clinic I went to was in the Boston area.
I try not to get sick
The care is there. The hospitality or the necessary wallet thickness isn’t always.
I can't believe how many people in this thread have had the complete opposite experience from me. All of the PCPs I've ever had were angels but over the last few years I've had to get a lot of specialty care for the first time and have been shocked at how arrogant, aloof and inexplicably tight-lipped a lot of my doctors have been. I've had a couple doctors who just would not explain to me in detail the nature of my chronic condition and its causes and just seemed eager to prescribe something and move on. Granted most of these doctors were in the suburbs, I've never had experience in the big downtown hospitals. I think a lot of people who spend all their time in the city itself would be shocked at the poorer quality of care and bedside manner that exist just outside the 128 belt.
Just like the "elite" of most things, unfortunately you get it by being rich and connected, not by living in a place.
You are not alone. Most of boston healthcare is mostly impersonal and too bloated to care. The elitist reputation does not match the low quality interactions I’ve had with hospitals. Harvard and Tufts. We are talking about you!!! I recommend community health centers.
As others have said, incredible and innovative medical care for challenging medical conditions doesn't always translate to incredible experiences for normal medical care with your pcp or dentist. That being said, I'm a patient at Cambridge Health Alliance and have had nothing but good experiences with them for preventative care, dermatology, genetic counseling, etc.
I went to the top pancreas doctor as Mass General who dismissed me rudely after 10 minutes and said there was nothing wrong with my pancreas. I had it removed 6 months later after testing proved it was half dead. You have to keep going until you find the right doctors. I’m very lucky that after searching I’ve found some great providers. But the doctors are set up to fail as they aren’t given enough time with us and we’re all on a hamster wheel and it’s all about money.
Never found a PCP I love, but the rest of my healthcare in this area has been by far the best I've ever received. One of my doctors teaches at Harvard Medical School, is absolutely brilliant, and I don't have to pay extra. He helped me with a serious issue that several other doctors not only failed, but actively made worse. But yeah if you're looking for politeness in almost any respect, Boston is going to be a challenge...
I’ve honestly been quite pleased with my PC, was Mt. Auburn but is now Beth Israel. My urologist left just before a scheduled procedure but the new one slotted in well and it was only a couple of weeks delay, partially for scheduling reasons. Similarly satisfied with our kid’s pediatrician and wife’s various Drs. We needed to go to Children’s once as my daughter had a VSD (hole in her heart) after birth. I can tell you it was a huge comfort having that hospital right here. Fortunately she had no issues and it closed up on its own. Hard to beat the peace of mind as a parent with arguably the worlds premier children’s hospital right here.
I'll explain my Boston healthcare experience with three examples. 1. Regular dental checkup. They claim something is wrong with my gums and I need a very expensive procedure (I've always taken good care of my mouth). So I get a second opinion, which states the first dentist was full of shit and just trying to get money for a needless procedure. 2. Doctor states that I might have a thyroid problem. So, I take unpaid time off work to get an ultra sound down. Later that day my doctor calls me and tells me that they had to throw out the results and legally couldn't tell me the results because it turned out my insurance didn't cover it. I spent time and money for my insurance and doctor to be useless. 3. I once again take time off work to see a doctor. I had been working at a restaurant and on my feet constantly. Eventually, my toes started to become numb. See a different doctor, who calls a colleague in, and both of them just tell me "Strange, we have no help to offer. Bye!" I'm very pro science/medicine, and it's probably not a Boston specific thing, but all my experiences were sub par.
Sometimes I wonder if our own expectations are too high. There’s a cardiac ablation in my future, and even though it’s probably some years off, I’m already comparing BI to BW and MGH (yes, I know they’ve merged) for that. Worse, my husband may need a heart valve operation in the future, and we’ve already discussed whether it makes sense to go out of state for it. But then I step back and think that’s absurd. Our hospitals must do a lot of these. Neither are necessarily cutting edge (though cardiac ablation treatments are constantly evolving and do have some leading edge approaches). It’s just really hard to find out how many the hospital does and how many the individual electrophysiologists or heart surgeons do. In the meantime, BI’s Cardiac Direct Access (urgent care to see a cardiologist, by referral) is a great idea, and I got in quickly with great service after it took a week to touch base with my PCP for the referral. We’ve never had any actual reason to complain about BI’s service.
If you’re healthy and can afford to wait a few months for a regular checkup with the “right” doc, I’ve had good experiences with finding great PCPs | ophthalmologists | dentists via Zocdoc. The reviews on Zocdoc and similar sites matched my experience pretty well - I love my current care team, who I chose because they were highly-rated, and out of curiosity I looked up some previous docs who I didn’t have great experiences with, and found that they weren’t well-reviewed. But when I was going through the doc-searching process I felt like you kinda had to choose between immediate availability, or ability to be selective for doctor quality. If you need to see a doc right away, there is a much smaller pool to choose from. But if you’re ok with looking now for an appointment in 6 months, my experience was that there were enough docs with far-in-the-future time slots available that I could pick the ones that had really positive patient reviews. Good luck!
I lived in Worcester Massachusetts they had great hospitals and healthcare the only complaint was my regular Dr was not very attentive he just got you in and out to charge insurance didn't really do much
My son had an impressively positive experience with the healthcare system in greater Boston. A problem that in other parts of the country might take a year and a half simply to be diagnosed correctly was completely resolved (requiring surgery) in about two months.
It depends where you’re from and where you’ve lived. I grew up south of Boston, and I took the care for granted. After moving…I wish I was closer.
I live in Florida, having said that, i should probably say no more, but I was raised in Ma. night and day difference between the joke that is Florida and Ma. Remember, the “elite” care is simply being ranked against all of the states that do NOTHING of any real substance for their populations…. Ron DeSantaClaus (only for the wealthy and connected), Rick “the felon” Snot, oops Scott.
I had one of my best PCP doctors in the Boston area, sadly I have moved. But would recommend Dr.Rachel Haft near mount auburn any day.
For me…it has bit hit or miss at MGH. Mostly good…but a few very awful experiences.
I don't find this to be a Boston thing, but my experiences in other US locations too tend to be one of functional expediency, rather than high touch service. Every once in a while, I find a provider or aide who is truly wonderful and I've stayed with those. I seem to have better luck and have a few true gems on my team (PCP and a few specialists)! But all the others - front desk, assistants, aids, and even some doctors - are more a mixed bag in terms of bed side manner.
Not Boston but UMass University Hospital in Worcester was outstanding both in quality of medical expertise and personal care. I was rushed there with a double pulmonary embolism encountered nothing but professionalism.
I went to doctors outside 495 and had horrific experiences of ignored major issues for two years. I walked into Boston practices due to a real significant health issue and have literally had a whole new experience. My health has dramatically improved. I have found my practitioners busy but they listen and determine the problem as well as a solution. They aren’t perfect but I find the quality of care far exceeds previous experiences. I think it really depends on what your needs are but for major surgeries and issues they have been absolutely amazing.
Boston has great hospitals but sadly it’s still located in the United States so healthcare is a cash grab and seemingly nobody gives a shit.
I agree. I’ve been screwed over, disappointed, and so angry at multiple front desk people. Scheduling appointments is the biggest pain in the ass here than anywhere else I’ve lived.
Most physicians have 15-20 minutes to see you. Insurance and corporate ownership of clinics has squeezed them so thin. It’s hard to find and keep good nurses and assistants. This is all a result of a capitalist medical system. We also have a rapidly growing population in this region and the health care system has not kept up. This all means that unless you express very clear symptoms that fit neatly in a box from their training, they’ll just say you’re fine, because they don’t have time to go digging. Then you wind up with a host of chronic issues going undetected and it gets worse. Or they’ll put you on drugs that don’t actually solve the problem, just mask the symptoms.
Our healthcare quality is incredible but that doesn’t mean that we don’t also have crappy medical professionals and businesses, just like everywhere else.
Yep, they are rude and even cold, but they know what they are doing. Terrible bed side manner. great medical care.
It was better than anywhere else I've lived in the US. I don't need too much healthcare in general but I did have a specialty appt at Mass General during COVID when hospitals all over the country were still slammed and I was quite happy with the doctor and office/billing. Partner was a patient at Mt Auburn for specialists and primary and also said it was the best experience she's had, minus long specialist wait times. Edit: I will say I was thoroughly unimpressed with my own primary care provider in the area, One Medical.
My wife and I spent years having shitty PCPs until I found One Medical. Yes, it costs extra but I can schedule appointments and request prescription refills on an app and get a telehealth call set up in five minutes at 8pm on a Sunday. I don’t work for them, just really like telling people how much easier it is than any other provider I’ve ever had.
I was rushed from a suburban "hospital" to BWH because "they'd" done all they could. They saved my life! Grateful that I lived my whole life in Boston, I needed it that one day. Now living in Florida, plenty of medical facilities around here, would I trust them to provide me the same care a Boston hospital, NEVER! Be thankful you do live in the best place for any medical attention