Greater Lowell Family Practice

I have seen Dr. Kuin twice. He is nice and fairly competent, although clearly rushed. I went to him only when I knew what was wrong (once for a routine check-​up, once when I first moved here and had an injury that had already been diagnosed but not fully healed and I needed a referral). I don’t think I would have felt listened to if I went in with symptoms and no clue as to why they were there, which is obviously a problem.
But my bad review largely stems from the fact that it is nearly impossible to get an appointment with either Dr. Kuin or Dr. Chang. I recently called needing fairly quick attention and was given an appointment 3 weeks later. Their hours are not convenient. And perhaps equally important is that the office staff is unhelpful. I cancelled my appointment as soon as I made it (I called back 15 minutes later when I realized that it wasn’t worth my effort to bend my whole schedule around theirs, when I could just go to a better and more convenient doctor by switching to a different practice). But then a month later, I received an angry letter saying that I missed my appointment. When I tried to call them to sort this out, I was told they would be with me «in a moment.» I then was left waiting on the line for over 10 minutes before I gave up. They check their answering machine only on the following day – so even if you leave a message at 9:00am because you can’t stay on hold for 30 minutes in the middle of your business day, they won’t see it or attempt to call you back until the next day (if they call you back at all – they haven’t with me). The line also is almost always busy on the first few attempts. This is routine – this happened to me when I first tried to make an appointment, and when I made appointments in the past.
It is clear this practice feels they are getting enough business from people who don’t mind the terrible inconvenience. That’s fine. But I would not recommend that anyone add themselves to the list of patients at their disposal.

The doctor is good but trying to make an appointment is near impossible. The phone system is terrible. When you call the correct number you get … call cannot be completed as dialed. After the 3^rd or 4^th try you finally get someone to answer and they put you on HOLD for over 25 minutes. Now when I went to the office and checked in, I saw them put calls on HOLD and talk about what they did the night before as if they were putting the caller on hold for a good reason rather it was because they did not want to be interupted in their social time. I just could not believe my eyes. I waited 4 days for a call back with the information I requested from the doctor. Yes I agree with Alysha comments too. The office help certainly makes you feel like you are bothering them. I tried to tell them about their phone system but it goes on deaf ears. I have even experienced a busy signal. If you have an office manager you should have them take a good look at the phone system or the people operating it.

I have been going to Cindy Cheng for a long, long time. I have also seen Dr. Kuin and they are both very competent. A lot of people who see Dr. Cheng complain that she tries to move as fast as she can. And she does move fast, she can often sound like a textbook and isn’t that warm, caring kind of doctor with a super bedside manner. But she is compassionate and what I really like about her is that the does things the right way. I.e. I needed a breast reduction and I knew it but she made me try everything else first – physical therapy, motrin, etc. When nothing helped, THEN we went to surgery.
I like her a lot. I do not require a warm bedside manner and I like her text book explanations.
The reason I gave her practice a three star rating is that the girls who run her office have no idea what they’re doing. I’m sorry but only two do a decent job. I recently found myself explaning to a medical assistant what the difference between TD and Tdap is. The medical assistants need to be under the supervision of a nurse for reasons like this but there is not a nurse in house. Also they tend to over book.
Otherwise, Dr. Cheng does a great job and I like her.