Fairfax Pediatric Associates

I love this practice! I am a very critical person about my children’s healthcare since I was in the healthcare field. I have gone here with my boys since they were born. They are now 5yo and 3.5yo. I think they give excellent care, doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses and support staff. I have to take my boys to many different specialists for many types of reasons. I have always been treated with care, respect, and honesty and so have my children at this practice.
They have an excellent network of physicians, specialist and healthcare providers. They are willing to help set up appointments with specialists.
My boys have seen all of the doctors, but we often see Dr. Saleena Dakin, and Dr. John Tsai. We love them! My boys know who they are and feel very comfortable with them. We have also seen all of the nurse practitioners who are also excellent.
When we were going to the doctors frequently for my son who was two years old at this time he actually would sing songs about how much he loved Dr. Dakin. Out of the mouth of babes.
Our health insurance was going to change, but we decided to pay little extra money and keep the same health insurance JUST so we can continue to go to Fairfax Pediatrics associates.
No, I am not related to any of them even though I see them more frequently than my own family.

The doctors are nice but this review is for the administrative staff. I’ve been going to this place for a year and most of the time I experience scheduling problems. It is either they schedule us at the Fairfax office or they give us the wrong date. Even though we have been going to the Centreville office for the whole year! Their attitude is awful and they are not afraid to show it! I’m finally going to start looking for a new ped and I don’t have to feel like they are doing us a favor to see my baby. Save your time and energy and find some place else that enjoys seeing babies.

This review is not for the doctors, but rather for their customer service/​practices.
I called to do a doctor interview, which most doctors offices will do a ten minute free consultation for people seeking to meet a doctor prior to first becoming a patient. The lady was crass and told me they charge a $ 10 fee to do an interview. I’ve done many doctor interviews and was never charged. I’m still trying to understand what exactly you’re charging me for, considering how expensive medical care already is anyways, another $ 10 is for???
She also wanted way too much personal information just to do a doctor meet and greet two weeks from now (thats the soonest someone has ten minutes?). I didn’t get a good feeling about an overly bureaucratic practice that also nickels and dimes.
All I wanted was to meet the doctor and talk to them fro ten minutes. Seems reasonable if I will be spending tens of thousands of dollars with you in medical care.
Maybe they already have an abundance of patients and don’t need another one. Oh well.

Seems like a pretty well-​run place, and some of the staff are super friendly. But as far as the doctors go, the service can be a little hit-​or-​miss. Without naming names, the first doctor I met was super friendly and seemed to genuinely care. The next one was a little colder, and the third one seemed like she was TRYING to act nice, but it was fairly transparent that she didn’t care. And a couple of questions were met with very curt responses like she’s easily agitated.
I just found out that they are also not in-​network (which confused me because they «accept» my insurance, but that really only means we get a slightly discounted rate), and my wife agrees that we should probably look elsewhere.
Overall, not a bad place, but nothing special to keep us going back, especially if it’s going to cost us out-​of-​pocket expenses.

I have seen this practice push more nurse practitioners in place of real doc checkup even after you call and check ahead if the actual doc will be seeing you or not

I have 2 kids who have been going to this practice for the last 6 years. I know many families who take their kids there. Children are the number one source of investment and stress so if there are so many who go, it must not be good but great. We personally go to Dr Ohriner, he is AWEsome. Next choice is Dr Dakin. We have had nice service from Dr Tsai as well.

Okay, so everything good must come to an end. This practice has gotten out of control. They over book and the pediatricians, especially the female ones are not very sensitive to the children. They dont ask if they can listen to their hearts, they just lift the shirt and expect the children to breath normally. I am not happy with the way I was treated as a caring mother. I was dismissed and was told that it was okay to wait to three months for an appointment to see a specialist. There are too many pediatricians in the area to be treated as such and to tolerate such insensitivity.

High volume, impersonal practice. I’m really only going there out of pure laziness to find a new and better place. Will probably do so now that my youngest is older and his checkups are less frequent.
Pros
–Knowledgeable and attentive Board Certified pediatricians who are also AAP members
–MOST are very nice (Sorry, don’t want to name names or else it will become even harder to get an appointment with the popular ones)
–Friendly nurses
–Conveniently located in the Fair Oaks Hospital campus
–Good office hours and availability for same-​day appointments for urgent care/​illnesses
Cons
–The administrative staff needs some real lessons on basic customer service. They are rude, disorganized, unfriendly and not afraid to show it.
–Long waits to see the doctor once you arrive on-​time for your appointment, sometimes even if you are one of the first appointments of the day.
–It’s nearly impossible to request the doctor you want (or try to avoid the doctor you don’t want) since it is such a high-​volume busy practice.
–They do not make courtesy phone calls to remind you of your upcoming appointment like most practices do. Probably because…
–It is their policy to charge extra you for everything — being late for an appointment (standard), calling the off-​hours service line, calling to get a prescription refilled, getting a form filled out, parking your stroller in the waiting room, dropping your pen, using a tissue, forgetting to turn off the light in the restroom… okay I am exaggerating but only a little.

We’ve been very happy with this practice. Our triplet daughters are 12 now and this practice helped us through their premie stage, reflux when they were babies, asthma that they had until age 8 or so, and one daughter’s developmental issue. We usually just saw whatever doctor or nurse had an opening that was convienient for me, and that worked for us. I always appreciated their after-​hours phone advice and care, their Saturday morning urgent care hours, and the fact that we could always schedule an urgent appointment the same day. So, I’m sad to say that they’re not taking my insurance plan next year.