Columbia Eye Associates: Stopak Samuel S MD
2440 M St NW #516,
Washington, DC

Dr Samuel himself was nice and attentive. However he never wrote in my new contact prescription and it's been a week and a half after my appointment. His staff are rude and unprofessional. Worst customer service ever. They just make excuses and never give you an actual answer to what you need. Also, they say they will call back and never do. I wonder why my Dr back home recommended him on the first place.

I was referred to Dr. Stopak over 7 years ago for Lasik (it went fantastic). In fact, so well that I had to be re-entered as a new patient this year because I hadn't needed an eye doctor (shame on me). I returned to Dr. Stopak because I was having white flashes and other vision problems that turned out to be a detached retina. Dr. Stopak was fantastic, he called in a referral to the Retina Group of Washington (ophthalmologists specialize in either the front of the eye (Stopak) or back of the eye(RWG)) immediately, and directed me into the waiting arms of an available doctor at RWG in Chevy Chase within the hour. I had surgery to correct it the next day. This was an extremely nerve wracking situation for me as I was queasy just getting Lasik and I needed scleral buckle surgery. However, Dr. Stopak was incredibly calm, answered all my questions, and I cannot thank him enough for his gentle yet firm direction to get the problem addressed right away as it was serious. In his office, I was handled as a new patient, and intake went just fine (and his office staff was very helpful to the person at the window when I arrived who was trying to work out their insurance requirements). As far as the insurance issues of others... no matter how talented a medical provider, it is unrealistic to think that their front office staff is an expert on YOUR insurance plan. There are thousands of plans, and if we struggle to understand our own, how can you rationally expect anyone to understand yours and everyone else's? Your insurance is your own responsibility, grow up. Vision plans -- in particular -- have huge diversity, and are frequently disappointing. When it comes to getting health care in this country, just assume that you will have to deal with the full responsibility, and fight with your provider on everything. If your provider limits your network access dramatically, then start with their network listing, and select a provider there. But for my eyes, I wouldn't go anywhere else.

The service here in terms of seeing the provider was great, however I ended up paying for my entire bill due to an insurance snafu similar to the other reviewer. And herein lies the problem: I am a smart person with a lot of business savvy. However, I am not an insurance expert. I also do not expect that most people are. So in that sense, I feel like it should be the responsibility of the front desk staff to ensure those patients who are coming in are knowledgeable in rehards to their insurance. I just got off the phone with the UHC rep, and we talked this over for about 13 minutes. It is super complicated. However, I finally understand the ins and outs and benefits/drawbacks to using either my UHC plan (health) or my vision-particular plan of Eyemed. Seeing how long that took to figure out, I would hope that my interaction when calling the first time would go better than this: "What type of insurance do you have?" "I have Eyemed my coworker just told me" "We dont take Eyemed. What is your health insurance?" "It's UHC." "Great, we take UHC." The problem here is that there is WAY MORE that goes into this than just a "do you have health? uhc? good, we take that". What needs to be asked of me (since i am not an expert and your person should be) is "you should check with UHC to make sure that your vision is fully covered. Since it sounds like you have Eyemed too you might want to look into your benefits and make sure if we are in network, if you should use Eyemed for example instead of UHC". That's all. It's kind of like going into a financial representative's office and them asking you "How much do yuo have to invest?" and you say "$50,000" and without looking nay further into your risk tolerance, current obligations, etc saying "Great! We have the product for you". Or maybe that does happen :)