Barrett Diane, MD

Easily the worst OBGYN my wife and I had to deal with. We have three kids and our first one was with Dr. Diane Barrett. It was an ok experience before the delivery. On delivery day our doctor was not even there, understandable, but the delivery was not straight forward and there were complications. After the delivery Dr Dianne did not even call or checkup how everything went. We did not make that mistake the next two times. If you love your wife don’t go to Dr Dianne because she only cares about getting paid and does not care about how your pregnancy goes.
This is our personal experience so if other people had good experiences then good for them, but I would never go to her and would never want any of my loved ones to go to her.

Dr. Barrett came highly recommended. This review perhaps does not necessarily reflect her skills as a doctor however today I took my daughter for an appointment. I had left my forms at home by accident and when I checked in I told the receptionist I was sorry but I left the forms and my insurance card at home. She asked that I fill out new forms and could my husband fax or email the insurance card. I could not reach my husband and I was on the phone with my insurance company. Our appointment was at 2:15 by this point it was 2:45. I went back to receptionist to let her know I was still on hold with insurance company and my husband was not available she then informed me my daughter could not be checked in and I would have wait till I could show proof of insurance. I was completely floored. In all of my years in going to the doctor I have never been told we can’t register you or see the doctor until they receive a copy of the insurance card. Why couldn’t they have offered to call my insurance company or at least get us in to see the doctor while I was on hold with the insurance company. If all else failed I would paid out of pocket. It was a complete inconvenience to me and my daughter whom I had to pull out of school for nothing! Irony was I am suppose to go tomorrow to see the doctor and I told them to take me off the books I am not giving them my business! After all medical care these days is just big business who cares about the patients!

I lost my unborn son at 32 weeks.
I am writing about Dr. Mandolesi, Speyer and Barrett.
I’m not blaming them totally for my loss but I can’t help to think maybe it could have been prevented. Maybe if they informed me better would my son be here today…
The reason why I came to Gariela Mandolesi was because she had such great reviews.
I was already at the beginning of my second trimester when I found out I was pregnant, so I was already nervous about the whole pregnancy. I asked if it was ok to sleep on my back because I had a habit of falling asleep on my back and I read EVERYWHERE that it could be harmful to the baby. She told me it was fine and I could sleep on my back well into the third trimester of it was comfortable for me. So I continued to sleep on my back.
I saw Gabriela Mandolesi maybe 3 times at the most then I ended up seeing Dr Speyer for the most of my appointments, I have met Dr Barrett maybe once. I’ve never been pregnant before and I assumed Mandolesi would be my doctor but she just disappeared.
I noticed my baby wasn’t moving as much and I was worried so I moved my appointment sooner.
Dr. Speyer saw me and I told her I haven’t felt my baby move in a while. So she went to go find the heart beat and she couldn’t find anything. I was CRUSHED and confused. And all she could say was «we always tell you to come in if you haven’t felt the baby move in 24 hours». NO, you or anyone did not tell me that!
She couldn’t even tell me my baby died. She just said go to labor and delivery and have them do an ultrasound to figure out what was happening. Even my husband was confused because she didn’t give us any information. Because of that we had a little hope maybe our baby was still alive.
I waited 2 hours in the delivery room before someone came in. The lady who did my ultrasound that I didn’t even know was the one who told me my baby died.
When I had to deliver my baby that died, Dr. Barrett was the one who was the one to do so. I only met her once before so I felt like a stranger was delivering my baby. My whole experience finding it my baby died and delivering him was a nightmare from HELL.
After doing tremendous amounts of research and reading. I felt like these doctors did not inform me of the dangers and warning signs of stillbirths.
Sleeping on your back was HUGE NO NO and was linked to stillbirths and NO ONE told me to go to the hospital if I didn’t feel my baby move in 24 hours.
I wonder every freaking day if my son would be here if they told me those things… I did not even know what a stillbirth was until my baby died!
My life’s been forever changed and a piece of my soul died.
And even after everything was done I never heard anything from the original Doctor Mandolesi I initially saw. No condolences, no kind words, no card, nothing.

Dr. Barrett is great. After reading other posts, I want to say that I’ve never had any issues with billing or wait time. I love that she has two locations– Reston & Sterling. She is very friendly and quick with routine check ups! I’ve referred my fiancé’s mother and most recently, my sister.

Dr Barrett is outstanding. Very professional and gives you her undivided attention when she is with you. My one complaint I have is with the staff– dealing with some of the nurses is a pain. One of the older nurses in particular is always in a bad mood, although this seems to be a requisite for medical office staff no matter where I go;). For me, it’s been worth it to wade through the BS of dealing with the staff to receive the attentive care of Dr Barrett.

I loved Dr. Barrett. She was very friendly and she has really good bedside manner but I am hesitate to go back. I just need to take away all of the stars she earned due to her staff specially her billing person. I had a soft copy of my insurance card with me and they wouldn’t take it. I also let them talk to my insurance rep and they refused. So I follow their no insurance policy and paid out of pocket for ridiculous amount and now they are refused to pay back the difference of what insurance should cover. When I called to talk to a person took me an hour and when the billing person finally called me back she was so rude and unprofessional. So, if you still decide to go… be aware of the staff… not friendly at all and make sure you have all of your docs in hard copy. They are not in the 21 century with the system for sure.

I agree her bedside manner is great. But I can’t believe I was just turned away from my appointment for a REPEAT pap. They made a mistake with my first sample, so I was scheduled to come back in to do another. I got held back at work and literally RAN all the way to my car and to my appointment. I was 12 minutes late. I have waited much longer than that in the past to be seen in this office. The receptionist told me she would ask the dr if she would still see me. The receptionist then sat at her desk for 15 MORE minutes and then sauntered over to ask the dr… Then I was told «you can reschedule.» I couldn’t believe it! You make a mistake, I scramble to fit in another appointment and then you turn me away a second time? Like I am just thrilled to get poked with sharp things for no reason??? I am beyond upset. I won’t be back.

Best OB I’ve ever seen. Outstanding bedside manner and really seems to care about her patients!

Loved Dr. Barrett. Babies happen. People have to wait. Working in the healthcare field, I see a review that annoys me because that person that complained of waiting would want the same care given to the patient they had to wait for if the roles were reversed. I just referred my daughter.

I really like Dr. Barrett and her staff. They are always helpful, if they need to reschedule an appointment, they let you know within a reasonable amount of time. I have visited both the Reston and Sterling offices.
I have always tried to schedule my appointments first thing in the morning (they open at 8:30 some days) and never have to wait very long.

I am writing this update for two appointments that I had in June/​July. Each time I see Dr. Barrett I am impressed with her bedside manner, but I have to take stars off for making me wait… and wait… and wait. I get that they have emergencies and can’t always be right on time, but thinking back, I never waited less than 30 minutes (after appt start time) for her to come into my room.
Again, she’s a great doctor and I would be happy to see her, but the wait can be a bit of a bear.

If you value your time and your money I would recommend looking for another ObGyn office. Also, if you know you do not want an unnecessary c-​section, this is probably not the practice for you.
I have had five visits in this office — 4 for prenatal check-​ups (3 with Dr. Barrett, one with Dr. Speyer. I also had another initial appt with Dr. Mandolesi in Sterling) and one appointment for a blood draw. From my initial visit there was a lot of pressure from Dr. Barrett to have a sonogram to confirm my due date. I knew exactly when I got pregnant and my HCG levels, symptoms, missed periods, etc all supported that date. When I declined the sonogram Dr. Barrett really tried to pressure me and I told her my husband was against unnecessary sonograms (I thought I had made clear that we both were), especially because at this practice you have to schedule them with a separate imaging office, which is an added hassle. She asked me why I was letting him make the decisions. I explained I wasn’t entirely, but he has say and I wasn’t even going to discuss it without him there. Otherwise, she was very nice and bubbly and had a great bedside manner. She puts you at ease.
Now the problems. Out of my five appointments, twice I was called to reschedule days before because the doctor would be in surgery. I scheduled these appointments weeks in advance. Two other times the doctor was delivering a baby that conflicted with my appointment. The first conflict time I rescheduled. The second time they pushed me to come in earlier in the day though I couldn’t. I rescheduled for the following week, though I had scheduled my day around this initial appointment and had another Dr.‘s appointment for not long after so that I could take advantage of being out of the office. Then they called a couple of days later, said the surgery had been canceled and did I want my old time slot back? Yes, please. Well, when I arrived after getting checked in and left in a room I was sent away because I was told the doctor was in a delivery. As I arrived back at the front desk to reschedule there were people just arriving for appointments who were rescheduled for appointments before me. They were offered times an hour and a half from that point and I had to reschedule for the next week. Again, a little disrespectful. This was the second time I had my appointment interrupted because of a delivery. The first time they gave me the option of waiting, and I did because I had already been there half an hour. When the doctor returned after another half an hour I heard her chatting with the staff about the delivery and giving them every detail before finally coming to see me. I thought that was a little disrespectful to keep me waiting even longer. (This was Dr. Barrett).
Now, I know what you might be thinking. They’re ObGyns. They do deliveries that aren’t planned. I understand that, but I have never in 17 years and the birth of my first child been rescheduled or canceled because of another delivery. Either they are taking on too many clients or they are not properly scheduling appointments. Or, they just don’t value your time. Whatever the reason, I’m paying for each appointment with sick leave or vacation time — and that is money out of my pocket and time lost for after the arrival of my child.
The staff is not a real asset at this particular office. They are nice but not terribly professional or helpful. Also, the one time that I had a blood draw for two weeks after a check-​up they insisted that I had to schedule with the doctor during that visit, though I really didn’t think I had to. I tried to argue, but they had my chart right in front of them. On that blood draw visit I waited 35 minutes for Dr. Barrett before she told me as entering the room that she really didn’t need to see me if all I needed was a blood draw. The nurse came in and said, «If you had told me you just needed a blood draw I could have had you in and out!» Another unnecessary frustration.
Update: When I needed my records sent to the midwife I switched to the staff was super helpful and very nice. I would now give them a higher rating, if I could rate them separate from the Dr.s.
The last reason I would caution people against seeing these doctors is that they have a disproportionately high c-​section delivery rate. (Maybe that is what all of the scheduled surgeries are?) From what I was told it is about 50%! (The national average is around 30% and the WHO says it’s 10% in other developed countries). That is one in every two women they care for delivering via c-​section. Wow!