Barnet Dulaney Perkins Eye Center

This has got to be one the WORST medical offices I’ve ever been in (Mesa). The wait was in excess of two hours (felt like an emergency room). Waiting area was crowded and dirty. The staff was not rude, but not helpful either. The Doctor was only marginally interested in my glaucoma. The contract eyeglass store had a young women who chewed gum like cow chewing a cud helping customers. Who ever the office manager is should probably be fired. This place is clearly more interested in quantity not quality. Never coming back here.

While Dr. Fintelmann is technically adequate — he does not have the drive to dig into his patients and really solve unusual issues. I was referred to Fintelmann because of a cornea problem and after more than a year, it still persists.
Additionally, I can only echo the terrible support the office staff provides to the patients. With transportation issues limiting my options, there were times when I had an appointment at the Mesa office, it was on a day the Dr was at another site.

Frankly, if I could give this place zero stars I would. Though I thought highly of Dr. Fintelmann, the ophthalmologist I was seeing at the office, the way the practice is run is nothing short of a disaster. My first inkling of trouble occurred several weeks ago when I was experiencing extreme eye pain and was informed that all their physicians were at a conference in Chicago when I called their emergency number. They said I could see an optometrist; but as I suffer from a relatively rare eye disease, I knew an optometrist could not help me. (Optometrists are great at fitting glasses but do not have the extensive training in eye diseases that an ophthalmologist has.) After five days of agony, the pain finally lessened, and I kept my next appointment with Fintelmann. He told me I needed surgery, which I proceeded to schedule. A few days later, I received a call from a «patient advocate» who informed me that, whereas Dr. Fintelmann would perform the surgery, I would have to see an optometrist thereafter, even for the post-​surgery follow-​up. When I informed her that this was not acceptable to me, she said that I was fired from their practice and please don’t call again. She then hung up on me. So here I sit in pain, having a serious eye disease that can cause blindness, with a medicated contact lens and plug in my eye that should be removed, needing surgery and with absolutely no continuity of care. By the way, I have tried to find another cornea specialist (there aren’t many) but have been told that I’ll have to wait months for an appointment. Not to be melodramatic, but I could go blind by then or stark raving mad with pain. Sorry, if you need eye care, run away from this outfit as fast as you can. All they care about is money and doing things their way, regardless. You, the patient, really don’t count for anything.

This place is the worst! I waited 6 weeks for an appt with Dr. Fintelmann, who I was told was the ONLY surgeon Barnet, Dulaney, Perkins had. My appt was for 12:30 p.m. I arrived at 12:20 p.m. and found an almost full waiting room. ½ an hour later, although numerous folks had arrived (and the waiting room was now almost full), no one had been called in or left. A man went up to the desk and apparently inquired as to the wait. He came back and said they told him to «be patient». One of the other waiting folks said the great doc was running at least an hour behind schedule! I went up to the desk and asked if that was true. The next thing I knew, some one was trying to usher me into a room. I again asked about the wait (indicating that what I had been told was apparently wrong), and was informed he was running at least an hour behind. I guess they expected me to sit in that room alone (and be quiet) for an hour cooling my heels! I told them NO THANKS and walked back into the waiting room. The assistant asked if I wanted to reschedule. I informed them that NO ONE was that good and that I would go elsewhere, where patients weren’t treated like cattle. While the waiting room (which is quite large) watched and heard this going on, not a single person made a move to leave. They were all old (like I am) and on Medicare, but geesh, everyone deserves to be treated with some respect. Has everyone become sheep??? One of the other individuals in the waiting room had been there since 10 a.m. waiting for the same doctor!
I’ve already made an appt with another surgeon at a place where the doctors have been voted Phoenix Magazine Top Docs by their peers every year since 2005, and I only need to wait 3 weeks to see them! Dr. Finkelmann has NEVER been rated a Top Doc, or at least it’s not mentioned in his bio.
If you don’t have anything else to do with your time, and like waiting in doctor’s offices and basically being told you’re there for HIS convenience, then this is the place for you!

I’ve never experienced anything as bad as this place: Forgetting physicals before surgery, forgetting insurance paperwork, charging $ 90 for two digital photos by an assistant which took one minute, sitting on the phone on hold for up to 20 to 30 minutes and not having anyone return the calls, having them overcharge because the staff could not add, waiting for hours to see the doctor, then having them bill me over $ 700 for a 20 minute consult and second eye exam. The referring optometrist did the exact same exam two weeks before but because of «office policy» they insisted on a repeat even though my insurance would not cover most of it. You decide if these un-​professional doctors and useless staff are worth it. Now I have to start over and it took many months to get scheduled in. It is much worse than the highlights I registered above. You decide whether your time is worth it.

Pros:
–Convenient scheduling
–Email and text reminders
–Professional technician and doctor
Cons:
–Rude front desk staff
-$ 45 refraction fee
TLTR Version:
I scheduled a 7:15 am appointment after finding this facility through my insurance. They emailed me the paperwork to do beforehand, and sent email and text reminders to confirm my appointment. My calendar gets pretty crazy, so I really appreciated the additional follow-​up.
Upon arrival, there were two extra forms: 1) HIPPA release (Pretty standard) and 2) Refraction Fee Agreement. I had a problem with the latter. The doctor charges an additional $ 45 fee to write an eyeglass prescription, which most insurances don’t cover. WHA??? Isn’t that the whole point of going to the optometrist? Why would you charge me a fee on top of the exam price? I asked the front desk staff if she could check whether or not my insurance covered it. She blew me off, and said I had to sign the form regardless. RUDE! I told her I would take the form to review, and called the insurance company myself.
My insurance told me I shouldn’t have to pay an extra fee, and was only responsible for my $ 10 co-​pay. The receptionist called my name as I was still on the phone with the insurance agent, so I sent my husband to tell her we would cancel the appointment and go elsewhere. She then changed her tune and said it was covered. Why didn’t you just look it up and tell me that in the first place? The receptionist had a really sour attitude, and made me feel very unwelcome.
Fortunately, the appointment only improved from there. My technician Katie was professional and kind. She took very good care of me during the exam. I felt like she was experienced, and very personable. She answered all my questions, and put me at ease. The exam room was clean and comfortable.
Dr. Jared Anderson came in shortly after Katie finished my preliminary tests. She wasn’t even gone five minutes before the doctor arrived. His expediency was a refreshing change from the painfully long waits I’ve spent in other doctors’ offices. Dr. Anderson is very young (picture NPH’s Doogie Howser), but he’s no rube. He was very thorough in his examination, and gave me the good news that I have healthy eyes. He, like Katie, was incredibly hospitable, and made me feel like I was in good hands.
Terri, the employee who helped us at check out, was also very polite. She charged me the $ 10 co-​pay, and answered my questions about getting frames. Her personality was very warm, and she seemed to enjoy her job.
I would give this office a higher rating if I hadn’t had such an abrasive experience in the beginning. Also, they could offer better reading material in the lobby and play something a little more entertaining than an optometry video.
FYI — This facility only does eyeglasses. They don’t do contacts.

This place was recommended to my grandmother when she was diagnosed with cataracts. I have never heard of such hideous customer service from a doctor’s office in my life! Every step of the way, they were rushing her through, only to have her wait because the next step of their exam was currently occupied. They specialize in working with older patients, yet their facility is not able to accommodate them. Even in her wheelchair, their equipment was too high. The assistants there grabbed my grandmother under her arms — without warning or asking her permission — and lifted her up to fit the equipment so they could examine her eyes. Even our eye doctor has a table that can lower down so anyone, of any size or age, can get an eye exam. How is it that the nation-​wide famous Barnet Dulaney Perkins Eye center doesn’t have this capability? How can that be considered an accurate exam? For one of the tests, the assistant there grabbed her head and maneuvered it into the right position, again without asking. My grandmother may have bad knees, but she’s mentally sharp as a tack — you CAN ask her to move her head this way or that, there was no need to man-​handle her like that. Oh, and, believe it or not, the doctor was, apparently, too busy to come in and actually see her. Yep, that’s right. Hours of being rushed through this and that, and yet still waiting for hours as well, we only saw assistants, never an actual doctor. Through out all this rude rat-​race, we were asking the main question my grandmother wanted to know — how much would the cataracts procedure cost? They never had an answer. They told us a «counselor» would have to come to talk to us about it. How long would we need to wait? Oh, only five to ten minutes. We waited for one woman we were told would help, but when she was finally able to assist, she explained that no, she doesn’t deal with that information, we had to go wait for someone else. We were sent to another area, and waited for almost two hours to meet with someone who could tell us how much this procedure would cost… and then found out that this person was gone for the day — so no one would even tell us how much we could expect to pay to have her eyes fixed. So rude!
The real icing on the cake was the diagnosis they gave my grandmother. Keep in mind that no actual doctor even saw her, right? On the paperwork given to us, they diagnosed her with macular degeneration. We asked for clarification on this, and they stated that, oh, this was standard for a woman of her age. No one said she actually did have it — they based the diagnosis on the standard averages for people her age. Honestly, how can they expect us to believe that when they didn’t even bother to send a doctor in to see her personally?
Suffice to say, I feel that they treated my grandmother as nothing but a number. They ran her through without talking to her or bothering to treat her like an actual person. Frankly, I understand that the diagnosis they gave her was possible, but we’re going to go somewhere else for a second opinion. We plan on finding a doctor who will not only come in to see their patients, but will treat them like people, not just a standard age.

There are multiple locations of this business and multiple eye doctors. I went to the Mesa location for a yearly eye exam and was pleased with my experience. It seems like it gets very busy, my appointment was one of the first although I still waited 20 – 25 minutes until I was taken back (I guess waiting is just part of going to any medical office). I was impressed with the technician, she was friendly and did a decent job at explaining what she was doing and why. I saw Jared Anderson OD, he was very personable and helpful. For the short time I spent with him I would most likely go back based on the first impression.
They don’t do contacts at this location just glasses prescriptions and they are lacking in their frame choices. You can schedule an appointment online, fill out all the paperwork they need as a new patient and I really like that. They have kiosks at the front for people to check in… first time I’ve seen this but is not a surprising trend. My experience here was just fine but with the amount of patients they see there are bound to be negative comments along the way. My advice is to check out their website and see if this place offers what you are looking for because they do offer plenty of services even if it is at a location other than the Mesa office. I wrote this review because the review I saw for the Phoenix location, I just crossed my fingers hoping the good review carried over to other locations.