John Regan, MD

I am in agreement with the negative reviews stated about Dr. John Regan. I also went to this surgeon for diagnosis and treatment of my facet joint arthopathy. I was lured to his office by promise of a investigational motion sparing device in 2006. I remember their office to be extremely busy and the patient wait times were longer than usual. I was hopeful for relief of my sciatica pain. Later on, I was told that I was not a candidate for their clinical trial study. Instead, the surgeon recommended a L4-​L5 bilateral laminotomy, facetectomy with foraminotomies.
My surgery was scheduled at Century City Hospital. I had to arrive at. 5:30 a.m. for my admission. I regret having this back operation. While I was being prepped for surgery, Dr. Regan was running behind schedule and kept me waiting for over an hour. I was left in the attendance with only his surgical fellow and an anesthesiologist. I awoke after surgery in the recovery room in extreme pain with an oxygen mask over my face.
My postoperative recovery was rocky. While a patient on the surgical floor, a registered nurse attenpted to overdose me on pain meds that were being administered to me for pain management. When I questioned the written orders, the staff had threatened me to have me physically removed from the hospital. There was no back brace issued to me until I went in for my first postoperative visit ten days later after discharge. When I obtained my medical records, I was shocked to learn about a gross surgical error, a dural tear made during my. spine operation which Dr. Regan never gave me details about. The dural tear he created lead to the demise of this operative success. I felt that Dr. Regan dropped the ball in my medical care which today has a negative and adverse outcome in my case.

Dr. Regan is an excellent doctor brilliant in his field and removed a spine tumor that was smashing my spinal cord. I had the Best experience with him and his group who took great care of me so well I shed some tears. I would see him again and again and again if I could for my spine. Highly recommend him.

Unilocal BREAKING NEWS!
«Dr. John Joseph Regan — Fellowship Trained and Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon runs the Spinal Group Beverly Hills (not to be confused with anyone else with his last name)…is one of the very best Orthopedic Surgeons in the entire world! Don’t just take my word for it, this also appears to be the factual feelings of many around the word, specifically in the Middle East to include the King of Saudi Arabia and his Royal Family who have traveled all the way here to exclusively utilize Dr. Regan’s services for many years! I am so very blessed to have him caring for me and my spine for nearly two (2) decades! This talented medical GIANT is so richly blessed!
Your Unilocal SEARCH for Spinal Surgeons can STOP RIGHT HERE with Dr. John J. Regan!
Dr. John J. Regan simply stated is my hero. He has skillfully crafted my mobility and ability to work full-​time following multiple surgeries to repair a spine that was crushed in a major automobile accident — an accident where the other driver was rendered a quadriplegic!
The procedures performed by Dr. Regan have all been a resounding success! Dr. Regan’s state-​of-​the-​art surgical techniques have literally allowed me to return to my full-​time time very active job following injuries that could have easily rendered me or anyone else disabled years ago! Many physicians have stated to me that they have seen ‘other people’ (who have a much less debilitating medical condition than I have) simply give up and leave the work force all together. With Dr. Regan’s help I am able to work full-​time every week of the year thanks to his medical genius! Never have I anticipated nor needed to file for permanent disability. I owe it all to the well-​thought-​out expertise and highly respected experience of this extremely competent Surgeon. Hands down, one of the most engaged, knowledgeable, kind, sensitive, personable, respected and highly-​skilled surgeons within this profession hands down!
Lastly, allow me a minute to reflect back on his incredibly talented staff… because any one working next to this genius must be great at what they do.
A big thank you and shout out to the best Medical Bench Strength Team available! Dr. George Cyril is the Directing Physician working along-​side Dr. Regan. Dr. Cyril is highly credentialed and recently recognized by the International Association of Healthcare Professionals as a Leading Physician of the World. This honor qualifies him for inclusion in the 2015 Edition of The Leading Physicians of the World and Top Physiatrist in Beverly Hills, CA! What is a Physiatrist? Physiatrists, or rehabilitation physicians are nerve, muscle, and bone experts who treat injuries or illnesses that affect how you move. Exactly the bench strength needed for the patients follow-​up treatment following surgery or effectively eliminating the need for surgery all together!
Ms. Deena Alvarado, is a EMT trained, highly diversely skilled as well as extremely well-​connected with other medical professionals. Ms. Alvarado handles all Surgical Coordination for Dr. Regan. She is supported by the highly professional and consistently congenial Office Manager, Ms. Nicole Blackwell! I owe these ladies many thanks for their responsive research, booking, supporting, clarifying and attention to details for all of my concerns throughout this entire process! You will immediately feel comfortable by your memorable interface with these two highly attentive and talented office professionals!
IN SUMMARY: Do not wait any longer… click here to reach out to this highly motivated team who are all committed to giving you their best effort in getting your life back on track! I’m very pleased with my choice in surgeons!
Spine Group Beverly Hills
8929 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 302
Beverly Hills, California
(310) 385‑8010

Great office. Luv Deena. Professional staff n Doctor and Regan attention to my lower back pain. Ok looks good! He said not need surgery. Thanks for being honest

My husband had 2 surgical procedures with Dr Regan & we were impressed with Dr & his staff. Unfortunately, the first surgery was not successful & my husband had to have a 2^nd surgery 2 months after the first procedure. The 2^nd procedure, a spinal fusion finally relieved his pain. My husband is about 2 months post op & is doing well. Thank you Dr Regan. A thank you to his staff as well.

Please disregard the idiotic review from Mar M. A really insightful review of a surgeon without any foundation other than office issues. I, on the other hand, had full blown surgery with the doctor and can attest to his utter brilliance and kindness as a treating physician. He is clearly on the cutting edge of what is being done as far as procedures, and I owe him a renewed life. He was a delightful person besides. His office strove to make things as easy as possible for me, and I am grateful in every way. Be sure to obtain a consult with this wonderful doctor should you have spine issues.

OMG This guy’s a MORON!!!
Sends me for disc-​testing, and because of his sense of competition he ended up doing testing on the wrong disc!!! A disc that was not even at risk of degeneration!!! When I found out I was LIVID!!! I patiently waited until I had my followup with him, I woke up at 5am hit the road at 6:30 AM to beat the traffic on the 10 W fwy only to get ALL the way out to Beverly Hills to hear, «Oh, he got called into Jury Duty…» Well, didn’t we know that could happen yesterday? Shouldn’t we have called the patients!!! Not in this office!!! Or was that special treatment just for me because guess what; Surprise, Surprise, same thing happened for a week straight! So I cussed out the staff instead and I sent every bill I received I straight to my lawyer!!!
If you mess up have the nerve to stand up and admit you messed up (like a man), you pay for the insurance, just apologize sometimes that’s all it takes; or just admit you’re not cut out to do this anymore and just step aside! No one should have to go through this!!! It’s simply Not Fair, we’re going through enough at this point!!!
The funny part about all this is it all took place in December 30, 2008 and your Jury Duty was in January of 2009. I saw you at your office off of 120 S Spalding Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90 212. Just saying it’s just too uncanny.

I recently had lower back surgery. I am CEO of an automotive services company and was extremely concerned about how the surgery would affect my ability to conduct my business… not to mention my concern about the surgery itself. I had let things progressed to where I could barely walk and had shooting pains down both legs, but particularly my right. I am amazed at how wonderful I feel now. I was back working in about ten days, although not moving around as quickly. I could drive, make dinner myself and take myself to Dr. Regan’s office. Everyone in the office was helpful, great on follow-​up and very reassuring. I only regret I hadn’t dealt with the problem sooner. We all hear a lot of scary things about back surgery, but I would never hesitate now that I have Dr. Regan and his wonderful group in my life!

Dr. Regan gave my 90 year old father another chance! I can’t thank him enough for being willing to operate on my father when others might have balked. My father was in tremendous pain from extreme stenosis. Dr. Regan said he was in good condition and that an operation would help. He realized the importance of giving my dad a better quality of life… and that he did! My dad came in with a walker and now only has a cane when he needs it. He has no pain and is living life to the fullest once again. Dr. Regan is a gem! He is officially part of our family (whether he wants to be or not) :) His staff is equally as caring and wonderful and took care of our every need. I can’t recommend this office enough.

Dr Regan is not your typical surgeon — he took care of me in the ER and did a great job.

What do you call a doctor who graduates first in his class or last? Doctor… A joke my sister told me when she graduated medical school… My whole family works in the medical field in some capacity. I was seriously injured transporting a patient some 28 years ago working as a Respiratory Therapist. I decided the best person to manage my health care was me. I researched and found in the United States the man who seemed to be the most advanced and highly respected in spinal disc replacement was Dr. John Regan. I researched his training, the number of spinal surgeries and variety he had preformed. I checked his standing with the AMA and his affiliations. I checked how his patients did post-​operative. So I went to see him armed with a summary of my nightmarish history of back pain and treatments I had tried in an effort to keep walking. I was falling down stairs and falling without warning due to the nerve in my left leg causing the leg collapse. Falls had caused serious injuries sending me to the ER multiple times. The last fall had fractured my skull. The fall could have killed me. There were other symptoms as well but this was by far the most frightening.
Dr Regan preformed a 2 level lumbar disc replacement at Cedars-​Sinai Medical Center in 2005 which went very well. I was up walking in the hall by the second day and climbing stairs by the 4^th day. I recovered rapidly with no complications. Most importantly I was flexible. I had no more falls and the long list of symptoms I had prior to the surgery disappeared. I still had pain but it was controlled by medication. The pain was not a surprise as I had a lot of nerve damage from nerves being compressed for a long time. Dr. Regan does not do pain management so I was released to the care of a pain management doctor.
Eight years passed. In late 2013 I went to see Dr. Regan again. This time the pain had become unbearable. Something else was wrong and I could not get my pain doctor to do proper testing to find out what was causing the problem. Dr. Regan immediately ordered testing. There were limitations on what could be done because the pain doctor had implanted a (utterly useless) pain stimulator in me thus limiting testing to a CAT scan. It became clear that I needed surgery again. I had arthritis compounding my problem and causing serious deterioration. It was anticipated I needed several procedures done during the surgery, removal of the pain stimulator, removal of osteophytes and placement of special C shaped springs that would keep the facet spaces open to remove pressure from the spinal nerves. The length of time for the surgery was anticipated at 1.5 hours. On March 19, 2014, 1.5 hours became 5 hours of surgery as my condition was far worse than testing had indicated. A large calcified cyst pressing on nerves had to be removed and the condition of my lumbar and sacral spine required fusion to be properly repaired. Dr. Regan is very meticulous and takes pride in his work. These are excellent qualities in a surgeon. I was up and walking the next day after the surgery (3 times the 1^st day). It is a testimony to the fine work Dr. Regan does that I could stand and walk the following day after extensive surgery. It is an indication of careful and delicate workmanship.
I have worked with a lot of doctors and had a lot of doctors work on me. I know the difference between caring and indifference. Dr. Regan is a world class surgeon who shows compassion for his patients. I owe him a great debt I can never repay for the gift he has given me. Thank you Dr. Regan once again for your kindness.
Dianne L.

Dr. John Regan is a terrific surgeon. I would recommend him to anyone having back issues. With that being said, there are a few things to make everyone aware of along the way. In January of 2012, I needed surgery for a disc that had burst between my L4/​L5. I had awful pain in my left butt/​hip/​leg/​foot area. My disc was originally protruding out into my spinal canal until it burst causing half of my disc to fall into my spinal canal. When I had the surgery in January, Dr. Regan was able to remove all of the bad disc in my spinal canal, and patch up the area between my L4/​L5, leaving the good parts of the disc still in place. No fusion was necessary. Less than 3 weeks later, Dr. Regan had me performing physical therapy. I figured why not, seeing as a few days after the surgery, the shooting pain was completely gone (felt great), and I was just a little sore moving around in the back area.
After a few weeks of physical therapy, I started to develop a pain again in my calf area (same as before). Nervous, I went back in to see Dr. Regan for my follow up. He explained to me that it was scar tissue causing the pain and that it would fade away. By the middle of May, the pain had gotten worse, and I started developing pain again along my left leg. Finally, I went elsewhere to get an MRI, and the results showed that my disc had leaked again into my spinal canal and was making it’s way down the canal. I took pictures of the images and sent them to Dr. Regan for him to see. After a few days I got an email from one of his assistants who told me the Dr. couldn’t read the images and that I needed to schedule an appointment and bring the original films. I said sure. Whatever it takes. When I went in to see Dr. Regan, he looked at my films and saw immediately that I was going to need another surgery. I then took out my iphone and showed him the pictures I sent via email and asked, «Are these hard for you to read?» A little confused, he said, «No. That’s a nice close up,» and then started explaining the image to me. I said I was just curious, because according to one of your assistants you’re not capable of reading this. He shook his head and apologized when I explained to him the story and I told him not to worry. He was the one I trusted and he was going to perform my next surgery. I also explained to him that in the past 5 months my insurance had changed from the SAG Health Plan to the AFTRA Health Plan. They accepted SAG but not AFTRA, but Dr. Regan said he would make sure his office would accept it and not to worry about the extra costs.
At the beginning of July, I had the second surgery. Because he had to cut into the same area for the second time in 5 months, there was a little more bleeding and my recovery time was a lot worse. Two months after the surgery I had one final MRI because I was still in good pain. The results showed a great deal of swelling and irritation surrounding the nerves which was still creating pain in my leg. The good news is that the remaining disc had finally held in my lower back. The pain in my leg continued to fade and by November/​December the pain was completely gone.
So now, I give you a list or things to be aware of along the way:
1. My suggestion when having a discectomy… REST after the surgery for at least 4 – 5 weeks before trying to be a hero and doing any activity like physical therapy. There’s a difference between getting up, going to the bathroom, walking down the street, compared to physical therapy where they put you on an elliptical, and start giving you light weights to handle.
2. Dr. Regan is a great surgeon which makes his availability scarce. You might be in terrible pain, but because of his demand, there are hundreds of others in terrible pain trying to see him immediately as well. And with that being said, when you go to see him, you may end up waiting 45 minutes to an hour sometimes (as I did). And when you see him, you better already have a list of questions for him, because he will go fast. He isn’t the most personable, he’s simply there to solve your pain issues.
3. Office staff: Aurora who handles scheduling. Apparently, I caught her at bad time during her life as a few other staffers had explained to me while going through my first surgery. Nicole… gets bombarded the most with questions regarding Dr. Regan, and doesn’t have the time to deal with everyone and most likely needs more help. Deena… told me I couldn’t have my MRI results after the 2^nd surgery without coming in and scheduling an appointment. Asked if I could have them mailed from the facility who did the MRI. She said no. So I called the facility, asked for my results, and they faxed them immediately. Saved a few hundred dollars on the office visit! Oh… and all staff members will promise to get back to you by the end of the day. Not always true.
Overall Conclusion: factory for back surgery. terrific surgeon with a few too many patients.

I was diagnosed with 9 mm bulge on L5 S1, I never had surgery before and I was really nervous. My pain was so intense that I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t stand, and find a place for myself. I tried all homeopathic, natural remedies and physical therapy for a year to avoid this operation but the herniation grew from 5 to 9 mm. So I made an appointment to see him and they scheduled emergency surgery within a few days. Dina and Nicole were part of the very helpful staff that saw me through this ordeal. My outpatient Microdiscectomy at St. John’s took about an hour and I was home by noon already feeling better. I was up and walking within 2 days and my progress towards normalcy has been very gratifying. It’s been now a week and my pain is completely gone!!! God bless Dr. Regan!!!

I rarely review anything when I have a positive experience. Typically I’ll just vent and complain when things don’t go my way at a business, restaurant, etc. I’m making an exception for Dr Regan. He’s a lifesaver and here’s why:
— The problems I’d been having with my back the past few years have been taken care of through one of his clinical studies.
— Obviously everything comes at a cost. Compared to other doctors in the area it all came out very reasonable combined with what my insurance covered. Completely worth it.
— The staff treated me well. Some days there were longer waits than others but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for any doctors office.
— He’s a nice guy that put some of my problems and solutions into terms that I could understand instead of trying to cover up sentences with really big, unneeded words that most other doctors used with me during other consultations I had.
— The one thing I was afraid of was not having contact after the surgery. This wasn’t the case at all. All my post-​op visits and physical therapy were all taken care of by either Dr Regan or scheduled by his staff to get me mobile again.
I hopefully never have to run into any of these health problems again. But if I did, I hope the next surgeon is half as good as Dr Regan.

Horrifying experience with this doctor and his staff. Absolutely zero follow-​up. The staff loses things, forgets to get approvals from Insurance Cos, tells you that your insurance covers procedures even though they haven’t checked.
I have waited one year to have spine surgery and have suffered all year long because the doctor and his staff never submitted for insurance approvals after telling me that they where doing so with the help of third party. Not only was this not done, they tried to bill me for their time.
They keep you waiting at least one hour, sell you meds from their office (only to find out that the meds are herbal remedies which do nothing for pain).
DO NOT TRUST ANY OF THE GIRLS IN THIS OFFICE!!! FROM THE DESK GIRLS TO THE VIP LADIES THAT ARE THERE TO MAKE YOU COMFORTABLE, THEY ALL LIE AND TELL YOU WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR BUT THEY DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU AND YOUR HEALTH.
Really unfortunate because I believe the doctor has talent, but this is absolutely a case where money comes before patient experience and care.
This guy is a nightmare waiting to happen.

Dr Reagan is a genius. An amazing surgeon. Great doctor. He really helped me by performing a complicated spine surgery on my neck and placing bunch of artificial parts. He is not much of a talker. Specially at first but he later showed his friendly and social side also. I trust him with my spine surgeries.