Rubin April MD

I’ve been going to Dr. Rubin for several years and love her. Her practice is EXACTLY how medicine should be practiced, in small, personal environment where you are not just a number, but a real person whose medical issues tries to understand. I’ve seen her for my annual exams. In addition, she advised and treated me for infertility issues. Dr. Rubin provided expert prenatal care when I did get pregnant, and masterfully delivered my two beautiful healthy babies. On both occasions, she was a calm presence in the delivery room and her years of experience really showed. I could not have had a better OB-​GYN experience and cannot imagine ever going to one of those mega-​practices where they don’t even recognize you or know a thing about your medical history.
Dr. Rubin sees her patients at their scheduled time (imagine that!). She spends a lot of time with her patients to answer any questions and never rushes you out. Her presence is very calm and motherly. She genuinely cares for her patients because she gets to know them. This is the benefit of a small practice like hers.
If I could give Dr. Rubin a 100-​star rating, I would. Her personal, small-​scale approach to medicine and understanding of women’s health is a rare thing these days. I highly recommend her.

I’ve seen Dr. Rubin for both annual exams and prenatal exams. Dr. Rubin is a wonderful doctor who spends a lot of time with her patients. I’ve never felt rushed there. After an exam, she always talks with you in her office. Instead of rushing you out of her office, she asks «What else?» to see if you have other questions. I’ve never had a doctor spend so much time answering questions.
I found her advice practical and straight forward. She’s a really good doctor if you like to read up on a topic on your own and come in with questions.
Her office is cozy and zen. A small waiting area with a working fireplace in the winter. The nurse is really friendly, polite, and has a great bedside manner as well. It’s easy to get an appointment and to get medical feedback in between appointments. Wait times are some of the shortest I’ve experienced at an obgyn.
Yes, her practice is entirely paper-​based. It’s old school, and I kind of like it that way. The typewriter clacking, warm fire, living room vibe… did I mention this place is incredibly relaxing for a gynecologist’s office?!
The only negative is that Dr. Rubin has stopped doing deliveries. She’s seen me through my first trimester, but then I had to find another obgyn for the rest of my pregnancy. Still, I’d definitely go back to Dr. Rubin for well woman visits.
CHOOSE DR. RUBIN IF:
*You’re tired of dealing with large OBGYN offices with front desk staff who are rude
*You want to schedule an appointment easily
*You want to actually be able to call your doctor
*You want a chill, laid back experience
*You like individualized attention and want a lot of time to ask questions
*You know your insurance benefits (and what you need to pay) and can explain those to the nurse
CHOOSE ANOTHER PROVIDER IF:
*A home-​like environment doesn’t feel professional to you
*You want Big Brother to have your electronic medical records

I found this doctor to be unethical and incompetent, and strongly advise pregnant moms to steer clear of her.
Dr Rubin’s medical advice to me was dubious — for example, when I asked her whether it safe to eat sushi and lox while pregnant, she suggested that I should «pick one or the other.» This should have been a warning to me, and I wish I’d heeded it. Shortly after, there was a terrible clerical error on one of my screening tests, which resulted in my being told that my child had a 1 in 35 chance of being born with Down Syndrome. The error that caused the worrying test result was obvious — the tech had indicated that there was no nasal bone visible in the ultrasound, but included notes that repeatedly said it was. After I changed providers, my new doctor spotted the error immediately, and immediately had my lab work adjusted. But Dr Rubin didn’t spot the mistake, and if I hadn’t changed doctors because of concerns of fraudulent billing (a whole different problem that other reviewers have already brought up), I would have undergone an invasive and painful amnio, and many more days of painful, nerve-​wracking waiting to find out whether my baby had DS. (Plus, amnio is the one where they stick an elephant-​sized needle through your stomach — it’s not only painful, but poses a small risk of miscarriage.)
Thank heavens I switched doctors. I believe that April Rubin has overbilled me by several hundred dollars — and dealing with her office has been an absolute headache. Her bills are illegible and she refuses to return my phone calls. But if not for all of the billing problems, I might still be in her incompetent care — so obviously I consider it money well spent!
PS: if you do decide to see Dr Rubin, be sure to keep all of your receipts for co-​payments — they will claim that you didn’t make them!

I had such a terrible experience with Dr. Rubin. I went to her for my first ever lady exam, NEVER TO RETURN. First, let me say this: if you’re just going for routine check ups, have NO health issues or problems, are not at all overweight, and have no questions or health concerns you’d like to discuss, then by all means, go ahead and go to her. As far as the exam itself, it wasn’t too horrible, although she is by no means warm or friendly. She’s businesslike and cool, but she performed the exam ok, I suppose. I mean, no check up of this kind is painless. But I wanted to discuss some ongoing health problems and concern about certain issues (I’ve had thyroid problems and candida, and was concerned I might have PCOS), and after the exam, she basically answered every question/​concern with the response that losing weight would solve all my problems – including difficulty losing weight! She offered no further help or advice nor suggested anything to try. She just kept saying all my problems would be solved if I lost some weight. (I’m definitely somewhat overweight, but that’s connected to my symptoms – I was experiencing weight GAIN even while completely changing my eating habits and eating better than I had in years.) Also, I was looking into birth control options and she gave me a curt, cursory description (that I already knew from having looked it up on the internet) of a couple different methods I was interested in knowing about, then handed me brochures from the pharmaceutical companies and told me to let her know if/​what I wanted, when I decided. She was unhelpful, condescending, and disinterested in anything aside from textbook answers – and hardly even that! Mostly, she just used shame to address what have turned out to be real medical problems. I left her office feeling awful about myself and full of despair.
I have since found a much better doctor (actually a nurse practitioner at Vienna Family Medicine in Virginia (I had been trying to find someone more local), along with (FINALLY) finding another doctor who would work with me on thyroid and other issues, and I’m finally seeing a difference. Although getting Dr. Rubin to send my medical records to my new doctor was a whole other traumatizing and insulting ordeal that actually set back my IUD placement by two months (almost wasn’t able to get it placed before my wedding) while ALSO costing me $ 50 and the unpleasantness of having to deal with her unfriendly office admin (there’s only one, and both she and Dr. Rubin are pretty snobby) multiple times, because Dr. Rubin was conveniently never in the office, and the admin «didn’t have access» to my records which happened to be locked in the doctor’s office rather than being in the regular patient files. UGH. I just absolutely can’t say enough how awful my experience with this practice was.

Dr. Rubin is a very knowledgeable, professional and nice woman doctor. Office location is convenient to where I live (walking distance). They accept Blue Cross/​Blue Shied insurance but they only accept cash or check for the copay. Glad I found a good local doctor.