West Gastroenterology Medical Group

Dr Fan & the Nurses in the procedure area are Excellent!!!
The office staff is HORRIBLE!!! They are the real source of the problems with West Coast Gastro! They should all be replaced with competent personnel. It book 6 months of scheduling /​cancelling (by the worthless office personnel) to finally get my procedures done.
In addition, I have to protest my co-​pay, because they have the wrong amount. 6 months of this POOR «performance» is too much!

The doctor I saw was not knowledgeable at all. I complete waste of time. They don’t even answer their phones. I had to physically go to the clinic to make an appointment. Stay clear from this place.

UPDATE– so after waiting another two and a half weeks to get an approval for a procedure several specialists say I need, I call my insurance co to find out the idiots at West Gastro NEVER even sent in an approval request for the procedure.
If something is seriously wrong that has been acerbated by waiting for these morons to get their act together, you can bet your ass I will be talking to a lawyer.

Downstairs is great, where the actual procedure is done. Tok and all the employees downstairs are so organized and on the ball, and sooo nice. Upstairs, on the other hand, where their Admin offices are, is a nightmare. You cannot get a live voice, they never answer their phones, not even voicemail to leave a message! and they are dumber than dirt with screwing up appts. Very disorganized and HELL to deal with. Like pulling teeth to get an appt. The difference between upstairs & downstairs is like night & day. Absolutely horrible customer service.

This office is horrible. Waited 2 hours past my scheduled appointment time. The front desk staff were very rude and unprofessional. One of them started yelling at an elderly patient in the waiting room.

This place is horrible. Very poor time management skills. Made me wait over an hour. Office NEVER answers the phone. I had the wrong address and I couldn’t speak with a human to ask for help. When you are put on hold, you will hold for ½ hour and then they answer and hang up on you!
I really want to give it no stars!

What a nightmare! Long Beach office. I will never go to this Dr. again. NEVER, EVER! First thing I noticed when I walked in the room was that the paper sheet on the exam table had not been changed from the last patient, GrOSS! I waited an hour and ½ in a tiny, stuffy room, Dr. Simmons finally comes in, knows nothing about my records, goes to the front desk to have them call to find them. Fifteen minutes later he returns. Really prepared. And I was the first person they called in for a 2:00 app. The waiting room was standing room only, and there were people also standing outside waiting. They’ll be waiting until 8’oclock tonight. Very disrespectful of their patients! After today I’m surprised they have any patients! I’m going to call my Ins. Co. and ask them why they have this group on their plan. I refuse to ever go back there again!!!

As an FYI, I was still billed for an appointment that never ended up happening despite the offer for «help».

The office staff are friendly and the office is clean enough but they Re ALWAYS RUNNING LATE. Right now it’s an hour past my scheduled appointment time (9:15am) and I’m still waiting to see the doctor for results. This is my third appointment and every time the office has been at least an hour (more like 90 minutes) behind.
I appreciate the friendly staff but I need a more punctual office and doctor. I’m here early and respect my appointment time, why doesn’t the doctor?

Terrible place. Misrepresent themselves as doctors that they are not. They ask you to pay money up front and then you find out the insurance only allows them to bill half that amount. They coerce you to do procedures that are not necessary so they can bill you.

This office is horrible, I wish I had done more research before choosing them.
I have had several symptoms which prompted my need to be seen by a GI doc. I had been given the run around by their front office, who is consistently incapable at relaying urgent messages. Once I finally was seen, I was disappointed to have their Harvard educated doctor literally scratch his head in front of me and tell me he couldn’t explain my pain. No other solution or referral was offered. Annoying. I asked for my records so I could go somewhere else, they wanted to charge me for copies of information… about me.
Fast forward a few months and I’m in pain again. I call to make an appointment, get placed on hold, told they’ll call me back… When they never do call after a day and I call back, I got placed on hold, transferred and hung up on once the clock struck 5:30 (end of their office hours).
This is no way to run a practice. The doctors may be qualified, but their front office will ruin their reputation.

This review is for the long beach office, who I couldn’t find to review so I’m doing it here. Based on other reviews, all office’s suck.
I had an appointment and still had to wait more then an hour, but that is just the beginning…
I had a out patient procedure done more then 2 months ago and still to this day don’t know the results, never got a call back, nothing! I was completely forgotten about.
I’ve called the office 2 days ago and voiced my concern and was told that they will call me back the same day as they were calling the surgery center to get my results. 3 days pass and I’M the one calling them back and they still have not gotten my results. WTF, right? Very unprofessional office and staff, they need to get it together.
Aside from not knowing my results of my procedure 2 months after it was done. I was left with a $ 14,000 bill from the surgery center because the office scheduled my out patient procedure with an out of network surgery center. I went to this office because it was in my network and they knew that, why would they schedule my procedure at an out of network facility without telling me? Bullshit! Now I’m stuck with a $ 14,000 bill.
AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!

My nightmare started almost a year ago July 2013. I must admit the doctors appear to be good doctors. Can’t tell because, the office staff is unprofessional, unproductive, and do not return phone calls. I’m not sure if the doctors are aware of their behavior. I’ve waited for 4 months at a time on 2 different occasions for the proper paperwork to be submitted to my medical group for approval and authorization of medical procedures recommended by the doctors at West Gastroenterology Medical Group. As of today, I am still having the same medical condition, no medical treatment prescribed and waiting for an approval of an authorization for treatment recommeded by the doctor in March 2014, the proper paperwork has not been submitted yet. Now in the process of submitting a formal compliant letter to my Medical Carrier.

Wow! After reading the other reviews I was surprised!!! My experience was Great! The staff was super friendly! I just had my procedure yesterday & the nurse whom assisted me named Tok’s was a delight! She had me laughing, I was nervous & she calmed me down & the doctor whom preformed the procedure was nice as was the nurse whom gave me a shot & the guy whom wheeled me into the room!
I found the place to be clean & when I woke up Tok’s gave me apple juice & some crackers! Along with my papers, pictures of my procedure! Plus a warm hug!!! I would tell everyone do not be nervous about going to get a colonscopy!
Go to them! Thank You to the wonderful staff!!!

If I could give this place zero stars, I would. There wasn’t a time where I didn’t wait at least 1.5 hours to get seen, and when I finally got seen, I would only be seen my the nurse practitioner… (Chizo was great tho). And lastly, overall never happy with anything and I never saw improvement.

AVOID THIS COLONOSCOPY MILL. I knew something was wrong when I walked into the waiting room and saw a sign that said patients could wait up to 3 hours beyond their appointment time before the procedure actually started.
I started to feel faint after waiting more than an hour (not having eaten the previous day due to the prep), so I asked when I would be called. They showed me to another room which turned out to be the prep and recovery room. I WAS APPALLED BY WHAT I SAW: All the patients were lying on beds with a gown over their clothes and their shoes still on. I actually saw people being taken into the procedure room in their street clothes and shoes. This is a gross violation of basic procedure room hygiene.
Also, the beds (and there were a lot of them) were just a few feet apart with a curtain in between, so no privacy. They couldn’t have packed another bed in if they tried.
When I saw the substandard hygiene, I left and called my brother to come and get me. This is the only GI center my HMO has been using for the last several years. I’d rather go without a colonoscopy (at my age I should get one) than go here. It makes me wonder where else they cut corners…
This place stinks of a «profits over people» mentality. If you value your health, avoid this place.

I 2^nd other reviewers — this place deserves 0 to ½ star. My experience was unprofessional, uncomfortable and unproductive. Do not go to Dr. Simmons or Tizo. The office demeanor is cold. I waited for 50 minutes and had a brief impersonal 10 minute chat with Dr. Simmons. He made a rush prescription and left to talk sports in the hallway with another man. They are quick to pull the trigger on invasive surgery here and do a bad job following up with pharmacy prescriptions. I’m in a worse position because of this experience.

IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER OPTION DO NOT GO HERE. I needed to be seen ASAP for some worrisome symptoms and the only place I could get into in time was at West GI. My first appointment I waited for almost 2 hours because they numbered my room wrong only to see the nurse practitioner. Apparently the doctors are in surgery monday mornings, though they did not tell me this when I made my appointment.
I then had to get a minor test done and requested that I receive some sort of sedation as I have severe anxiety. The nurse said that would be just fine. I scheduled my test for 7 am on wednesday, as they said the earlier you get in the faster you will get out. I was the first to arrive at 6:45 am, only to be informed that the first doctor coming in did not do my kind of procedure. The next doctor did not come in until past 9:00. During all of this the extremely rude nurse informed me that I would not receive any sedation and that no one had informed her otherwise.
At my follow up appointment I waited almost an hour again to meet with another less than friendly woman who informed me they still have no idea what’s wrong with me. And that if I want to get my blood tested I have to drive to inglewood and wait an hour.
They are extremely rude, the waits are ridiculous, there is zero communication between doctors and nurses and the little time you have with them all they want to do is get you out of there. Huge mistake and waste of money.

This place is very clean and the staff is simply the best! It’s been a very positive experience for me in coming here for both procedures and to visit with the gastroenterologist.

The people and doctors here are nice enough, but with healthcare, nice doesn’t make you better. Long but not horrible wait time (about 15 minutes in the waiting room and 20 in the patient room. if I got something out of the visit, this wouldn’t be so bad, but the doctor was not personable, asked me questions and filled out a form like she was taking a survey, and then didn’t offer any solution our explanation as to why I was having my issues. Definitely wouldn’t go here again.