Irene Malek, MD – Malek Medicine

I left this doctor years ago as I was given horrible treatment. OK, the wait is ridiculous… that can happen at any doctor’s office. But, not every time. Alright… I made an appointment with a doctor and got a PA. I don’t really pay a doctor’s fee for a PA… kind of unacceptable, even if the PA was «nice.» I’m not paying for nice. When I did see the doctor, she sent me for a stream of unnecessary tests (which was verified by multiple «second» opinions.) These tests of course were not covered by insurance requiring me to pay out of pocket. Makes you wonder… Then, when one of my tests came back with a routine abnormality, she decided to write on VERY important paperwork that I needed to submit regarding my health, that I was NOT healthy. Second and third opinions verified the results as «within normal range.» I used to recommend folks to this office. I can’t now. Also, it’s not ethical for a medical office to be dispensing medications. Be careful if you use this medical office. I’d say «buyer beware» if it was a product. Sadly…

Update: Went for a follow up visit and was put into a waiting room. While in the waiting room waiting for the nurse practitioner, the head office manager came into the room to speak to me about my Unilocal review! Not okay! Unprofessional!
Recently, my medication that is greatly needed was expired by a day and Rite Aid was unable to fulfill it. I had yet to find a new doctor and she was the person who wrote the prescription. Rite Aid contacted Doctor Malek and her office told Rite Aid «that they were no longer my provider.» All because I shared my experience on Unilocal?I had to go to an Urgent Care to get a prescription.
Last time I checked you have to give a patient notice if you are not going to be their provider any longer. Thank god I don’t have to deal with them any longer, and have found a new doctor.

Dr. Irene Malek is an attentive & very caring Doctor. She is very informative & highly intelligent with her knowledge. Dr. Karen Finch P.A. is also incredible as well. She has a heart of gold. The new office staff is always on point with appointments & referrals & any other information that you need, but are very sweet. I GUARANTEE that once you come Dr. Malek’s office, you don’t want to go to another Doctor ever!

This office is like night and day from my experiences I had near the end of last year. Dr. Malek has all new staff and it really makes a huge difference. I am so happy with the changes made. I’m so glad I decide to stay with this practice.

I used to really love this place but as I come in more and more, I feel like my wait time just keeps getting longer. My appointment was at 0900 and I waited over an hour to get seen. On top of that, I haven’t even seen my real doctor, always the PA’s. Don’t get me wrong, the PA’s here are really great and awesome but I’m always seeing someone different and it kind of makes me uneasy. Another thing that bothers me is that the medical assistants are pretty rude. I don’t feel like they’re friendly at all.

Dr Malek is quite a ways away from Downey, where I live but it is absolutely worth the drive. She is always a pleasure to see despite whatever I’m at the doctor’s office for. She is informative, genuine, caring, compassionate and will take her time with you. I am relieved to have found a doctor like her, as I’ve had bad experiences with all kinds of doctors. The waiting room needs a little renovation, it’s a bit «cozy» lol. But I believe I overheard her saying they were actually in the middle of doing that. Regardless, I wholeheartedly recommend her.

I used to love this place. Recommended several people here over 6 years and now I’m completely over it. I don’t even want to give this place 1 star. I am embarassed that I ever recommended this place to people. I heard their horror stories and I feel like this place is unorganized and moving towards an unethical path.
1) I have waited over 1.5 hours from my appointment time including in the exam room with just a dressing gown on waiting for my appointment to start. I even got dressed to say I was leaving.
2) My BC prescription was written for 9 months not 1 year. Fine. It took a month for them to renew it an additional 3 months. I can’t even count how many calls I made to them and my pharmacy and how many times my pharmacy contacted them. Guess what, I ran out of BC for 2 weeks. Imagine if I took a blood pressure medication or something! When I got to the pharmacy, they knew who I was and commented at how unorganized they had been and promised they would renew and never did. They did the same to me.
3) No one ever answers the phone. The automated answering system is the most ridiculous thing ever. It takes 5 minutes to route it to the right person.
4) My clean bill of health requires visits every 6 months? Every visit requires a follow up. Even something with a clean bill of health. My annual checkup turned into a semi annual checkup. Thanks for running up my insurance. Also, if one doctor does my checkup why does another doctor or PA do my follow up. You never get the same person.
5) Appointments where you specify to see the doctor only and guess what, you don’t find out til 1 hour after you have waited, doctor isn’t even there which angers you and then you make the PA feel bad.
6) I called expressing my anger, cancelling my appt, and they blame it on incompetent staff and guess what, I get a call a month later 2 days in a row saying I missed my appointment.
This place is just an inconvenience. Save yourself some time and take your business to someone that cares about more than just overcharging your insurance.

I don’t know what some ppl are talking about Irene and Mark are the best ever I been coming here for few years and they always take the time to answer all my questions unlike my previous Dr. It’s like I was on the clock with him.

I have been to this office a couple of times and seen both Dr. Irene Malek and her brother Dr. Mark Malek. They were both very attentive to what I said, and I can tell they care about me as a person. I cannot recommend them enough.

Both Dr. Irene Malek and Dr. Mark Malek are both amazingly great Dr’s! Both very caring, giving and personable.

Where to begin after having wasted 2 plus hours today of my time when I am at work. First, prescription refills with this office is horrible. The do not refill when items are received, I even had the office tell me when I called that they had my folder and that the prescription that Costco was asking them to refill was never given to me. I informed them that I had been taking this prescription for over 3 years and the prescription was given by this doctor. Then the girl I was speaking with passed me around to 3 different people, the fourth person simply said that she would contact Costco and have it refilled. No apology for such ineptness. The office help in this office is horrible. The wait time to see the doctor is anywhere from 1 – 2 hours you will sit and that is with an appointment made 30 days or more in advance. You will start in the waiting room and then in the doctors office, bring your iPad or something to keep you busy. We would see the doctor once a year for a physical, maybe twice if someone gets sick, and make it clear we only want to see the doctor, yet every time in walks the nurse practitioner. We inform her that we would like to see the doctor and she says «I can read the lab results, you do not need the doctor for that». Seriously? Why dont they just tell you that the doctor is never available. And when you have to call the office, you are playing russian roulette on being answered since they installed an answering machine that says press here and here and here for what you are looking for-​during business hours and 80% of the time you have to leave a voice mail because no one answers the phone. Before Dr Malek’s group moved over to their new location, they were a very attentive office, since they have moved a few years ago, their service has gone completely down hill. Todays events are what has caused me to finally lose it with this office — Dr. Maleks office faxed over my husbands blood work that he had to have done at the lab prior to his appointment mid March 2015, my husband had done his bloodwork in advance a week before his appointment, the office called the evening before his appointment to verify that he would be there, I verified with them that they have his lab results, they said yes, everything is ready and I said he will be there tomorrow morning. He shows up and they inform him that they no longer accept his Aetna insurance IPA as of the beginning of March 2015. This is after he checks in, they take his info and have him sit for over 30 minutes. I then checked the Aetna website and called Aetna and the person on phone states that Dr Malek still shows she is accepting this insurance. Aetna also stated that if Dr Maleks office cancelled, they did not inform the insurance company of this. I have filed a complaint with the insurance company regarding the above issues. This is only the second time in my life I have been this upset to go this far-​but the incompetence of the way this office has been handling things in the past, we just kept ‘accepting it’ and making excuses for them, this was the straw that broke the camels back. I requested prior to writing this ‘blog’ them to fax over my husbands bloodwork results, spoke with Lynette, and she said this would be handled immediately. I have been waiting over an hour to receive this. Like always, it will be stated that they did their job when they did not. Another item is that they overbook appointments. When you sign your name in, they usually take the sheet and cover the name of the person that signed in for privacy reasons. I feel they do it so you do not see the people are triple booked. Not only did i sign in for my appointment, but we were all standing there at the same time, so we all signed in before she could take the sheet. 3 of us all had 1030am appointments set up with Dr Irene Malek. And this can work how? If my husband and I ran our business this way, we would not be in business. I like Irene, I hate the way her office is ran, the way you are treated on the phone, the long long long time you have to wait to see the doctor, the overbooking, the lack of care when you call the office and the lack of concern when you are trying to get your prescriptions-​plan on a week or more to get them to respond to have them filled. And the office calling to remind you of appointments that you do not have.

It’s not the staff, it’s the doctor that creates the turmoil in the office. A good doctor cares about the quality of their staff.

Great Doc! I have new insurance and live in a new area, so was nervous to pick someone new after 14 years in the care of someone else. So glad I found her, I was weary after reading Unilocalers reviews, but after seeing her, realized how wonderful she is. She is a Dr that truly cares about her patients, she spends time talking, reviewing, and suggesting options. She also explained she’s «cleaned house» with her staff.

Dr. Malek and her staff make every visit comfortable and worth my time. Each Dr. And PA in this office takes the necessary time to answer questions and put you at ease. I will never go anywhere else.

Dr. Malek seems like a nice person and a nice doctor, but her office is just too disorganized. You call and you’re put on hold for a very long time! And when they do answer, nobody can help you quickly, you are constantly put on hold. Everyone’s just so incompetent! I got so frustrated I cancelled my appointment and asked for my lab results, then they put me on hold again. Infuriating!!!

Dr. Malek is great! While I was living in Long Beach, I was happy to have her as my doctor (although the wait time could sometimes get up there).
The office staff is another story. When I was a patient, they weren’t very helpful and were occasionally outright rude. Now they’ve been calling me every 2 – 3 months for the past year telling me I’m due for an appointment. Each time (at least 3 times now), I’ve explained that I moved out of the area, have a primary doctor in my new city and will not be returning. Each time I’ve politely asked them to please stop calling me. Today was time #4, we’ll see if it’s the last.

Dr Malek awesome love her bedside manner. Office staff horrible. Very frustrating trying to get basic things done through them.

I felt compelled to write a review for this medical facility as I don’t want others to fall into the «trap»! I really liked Dr Irene Malek’s personal interest. That is about all the positive I can write. The staff, in my opinion, are incompetent and rude. The straw that broke the camels back was when they would only give me one month of hypertension RX with no refills and then told me they wouldn’t give me another unless I had more lab work and an office visit! I had just had several hundred dollar lab work done three months ago!
No, money hungry doctors are not my cup of tea! Needless to say, I’m going to another doctor!

I made Dr. Malek my primary care physician a year or so ago, based on Unilocal reviews. I don’t know what her practice used to be, but it’s unprofessional enough now that I’m going to switch my PCP. To this day, I have never even met Dr. Malek.
Asked them to fill in an asthma inhaler prescription over the phone, but they made me come in for a visit. Would be fine, except they kept me there over 2 hours — most of it waiting in the examining room. They sent in a prescription for me. Went to pick it up 3 day later, and of course, they forgot to prescribe the inhaler. This after last time, when it took FOUR VISITS to the pharmacy before Malek’s office finally got it right.
The pharmacy contacted Malek’s office regarding the missing prescription. Called the pharmacy 2 days later — still nothing from Malek’s office. Just called to ask them — got hung up on before I said a word, then called again and got the voicemail.
Follow my lead and save yourself a lot of time and trouble. Choose another doctor.

I have to say that I went to see this doctor based on her Unilocal reviews, but I was still nervous about it. When I got there I ran into my cousin in the waiting room and she told me she comes all the way from Norwalk to see Dr. Malek — after seeing the doctor, I can understand why.
I have been seeing doctors forever for asthma related symptoms and none of them took my condition as seriously as Dr. Malek and her PA, Renee. They ordered blood work, allergy panel, and started me on treatments for long term improvement.
Instead of just writing me the same inhaler Rx, they are endeavoring to find out WHY I am suffering from this ailment and to fix it.
Dr. Malek is very friendly and she took the time to explain all the meds to me and what they do and how they work etc. I have never had a doctor be so involved in my understanding of what I was being given and why.
I never like seeing PA’s instead of the Dr, but after meeting Renee, I can say I would feel very comfortable seeing her anytime. She really knows her stuff.
Some things to note: Parking before 6pm is 3.00 max — there is no validation for it. The office is located inside the Medical Center on the second floor and the office is small and not overly impressive as far as décor and such, but you will be more than happy with the service.