UPMC Shadyside Family Health Center

Ready to wait 4 hours to see the doctor you schedule an appointment with? This may have been one of the longest times I’ve ever waited to be seen at a doctor, after having an appointment and arriving ahead of my scheduled appointment.
On this particular visit, I was able to get an appointment earlier today due to an opening which was great. The staff themselves are very nice, but the office is completely overbooked and everyone insanely behind schedule.
I also appreciate that this place is a teaching clinic and a lot of residents work here, so you see them first before the doctors, but it makes the appointment twice as long. Also, you do feel a little like Groundhog Day when you have to repeat yourself again to the doctor. It’s also nice that this place can cover every aspect of your health care.
The waiting area past reception is pretty cramped and especially dusty, and where they keep patients after they are checked in. I’ve had two different doctors on visits to this office, both of which were knowledgeable, but talked in the room to the resident like I wasn’t there.
Also apparently there is parking next door in the lot that is free, but the sign says «urgent care only» which is apparently not true.
My beef is primarily the wait time and organization of the place itself. I would rather go to an office that keeps to its schedule.

Top five things to know about this place:
1.) It’s dirty. Not just dingy – dirty.
2.) The wait to see a doctor after being taken back was 45 minutes.
3.) The doctor gave me a «physical» without most of my medical history, by just looking into my eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, and by listening to my hearts & lungs.
4.) The reception staff was nice, the in-​take nurse was unconcerned with privacy, and the doctor was borderline incompetent.
5.) They don’t know how to properly bill the insurance company and they will refuse to release your medical records until you file a formal compliant.
I needed a physical. I called up my health insurance provider UPMC to recommend a new PCP since I could no longer go to my old beloved non-​UPMC provider. I was especially interested in a place that was open past 5pm so I didn’t have to miss work to go to the doctor’s. The best place about this place was the hours… and the worse part was everything else.
Point 1: This place was filthy. Dusty waitroom and dark smudges on the chairs. Gross. I almost left before the appointment, but figured UPMC would bill me for it anyway and I wouldn’t be able to get another physical for a year.
Point 2: I waited 45 minutes AFTER being taken back to the room. This is besides the 20 minutes past my appointment time in the wait room and the 20 minutes standing around for the in-​take nurse to get to me. I was 20 minute early to this appointment, FYI (time that we are not counting against them), and if you’re keeping score at home, that’s 85 minutes to see a doctor.
Point 3: This is worse part in my mind. The doctor was very nice, but she has no clue as to what she was doing. I have a lonnnnnng medical history and I guarantee you that she did not read through several inches of backstory in my files that were sent over. The doctor just asked about allergies before the exam. Her exam was brief with looking into eyes, ears, mouth, and nose followed by listening to my heart and lungs. That’s it. I asked about bloodwork and she said I didn’t need it. I asked for her to humor me and she said we would get back to that. Okkkkkay. Maybe if she looked at my chart or had asked me for my history, she would have seen that I most certainly should have gotten bloodwork (I got it from the next doctor I saw at a another practice without asking, FYI).
Also, the doctor said my heart sounded «perfect.» Ummmmm, I have a continuous murmur. So, false. BTW, that was in chart. If the doctor has read it.
I asked her about a refill on my asthma medicine to hold me over I saw my specialist. She agreed to give me a refill on the inhaler, but bulked when I also asked for the nebulizer refills. By saying that «nebulizers are for children» and chastising me, telling me to never use that machine again. «Just toss it out,» she said. When I told my (highly-​respected and high-​ranking) asthma doctor, he said this family practitioner was «incorrect, irresponsible, and incompetent.» He told me to never go back there and to absolutely keep and use my nebulizer when needed.
After her six or seven minutes with me, this doctor said that I needed a flu shot and that she’d be back with that and my prescriptions. SHE NEVER CAME BACK. Twenty minutes later, I left and checked out at the front desk. They told me that the doctor wanted to schedule a follow-​up. For what? To finish the physical?
Point 4: The reception staff was great – super nice. The doctor was eh (see above). The in-​take nurse was weird. She had me fill out the standard clipboard form and then asked to tell her a bunch of medical stuff in front of a dozen strangers in the standing-​room only internal wait room. I felt really uncomfortable even though it wasn’t top secret info.
Point 5: It took 6 months of fighting and calls between the UPMC Physicians office and the UPMC insurance people and UPMC Shadyside Family Heath Center (no relation, according to all of them) to get the the Family Health Center to put the proper billing code onto the form so I wouldn’t be charged. The UPMC Physicians office even threatened to go to collections over something that they acknowledged was coded incorrectly and should be free.
After all this, I wanted to cut ties with practice so I could get a new PCP. No matter how many times I asked for my records in writing and asked for this PCP to remove themselves from my UPMC file, they wouldn’t. I tried eight separate times. I had to issue a formal compliant about them through UPMC for someone to respond and take care of this.
I’d give this place negative stars if I could.

Part of growing up is picking your own doctor. Most people don’t get it right the first time and some even go longer before they find the perfect fit. For me however, I got it right the first time.
When I moved to the city years ago I wasn’t sure where to go for a doctor and traveling back and forth to my childhood neighborhood wasn’t an option when something came up medically. I did little research when it came to finding a doctor and frankly I just showed up one day at the office and asked to be seen. Luckily for me Dr. Jarvis was a perfect fit. Any time that I’ve had an appointment with him for a check up he puts me at ease.
Even if its just a last minute stop when an illness pops up they seem to be able to fit you into the schedule, which is what happened recently for me. I was able to get an appointment, be seen and have a medication sent via computer to my pharmacy before I left out the office door.
Other pros to this location, even though it appears small from the outside they have a lab that can draw a specimen on site. Also if it is something they can’t handle, UPMC Shadyside is across the street. Parking is provided off street for patients at no additional cost. And they have a friendly staff.

I’ve been utilizing Shadyside Family Health Center for my PCP services for over seven years. The location is convenient and they have both early morning and evening hours. I can almost always get in to see a doctor within a few days of calling, and wait times at the Center are reasonable. I’m typically in and out within an hour.
The doctors here who see patients most frequently are residents, so the one disadvantage is that if you find a doc that you love, they’ll most likely be gone in three years after completing their residency. I’ve had three different doctors, but they’ve all been young, easy to talk to, and had great bedside manner (maybe b/​c they are all new to the medical scene!).
Shadyside Family Health is directly across from UPMC Shadyside Hospital with free off-​street parking right next to the building.

Qfficient and friendly… Helpful staff and doctors willing to try!