UCSF Multiple Sclerosis Center

I would like to point out that UCSF’s adult and pediatric MS Centers used to be located at the same place, but the adult MS Center has moved to the Mission Bay campus of UCSF.
Adult MS patients are now seen at 1500 Owens St., Suite 320, San Francisco, CA 94 158. The phone number for the adult clinic is 415−353−2069.
The address shown above (400 Parnassus) is for the UCSF Regional Pediatric MS Center.
Their old website has been replaced by this one:

I was diagnosed with M. S in 2005 and this was the first place I’ve been to. At first, it was my first time trying to figure everything out and I must admit, it is hard to reach the doctors and etc.
When they were in the Parnassus location, it seemed like a mess. I could never reach any doctors until one day, I asked my doctor (who at the time was a children’s doc. for patients with M. S cause I was 16) how would I be able to reach him if i were having issues? Best thing to do, get the doc’s email. They usually respond very fast.
Now that they have moved to the new location, I had issues with my insurance and somehow, I got the patient coordinator to help me with everything. I feel that everyone is VERY helpful there and even though they are doing research, I really don’t mind with helping the research. I mean, they more ppl allow their case to be researched, the faster we are to a cure!
The doctors and staff are always very helpful to questions /​issues I had and I wouldn’t go anywhere else.

I was diagnosed with MS in January 2013. My symptoms have only gotten worse with no break. My symptoms are aggressive, difficult, and different. My Doctor wanted me to go to see a specific doctor right away at the UCSF MS clinic. I finally get a appointment in July 2013 and was seen by a different doctor. I spent over two hours with a resident examining me. The doctor came in and spent 15 minutes with me. He never asked the resident what she found with her examination and brought someone else with him into the exam room and never introduced her nor told me why she was there. He began the exam by looking into my eyes several different ways and stated he found some kind of damage to my cerebellum. He ordered more tests and stated to me he does not understand why I have to use a walker. It is for help with balance issues clearly present by watching my movements and confirmed when he did his eye testing. This statement destroyed my confidence in the doctors experience and what he could do to help me. Many more tests were ordered and I am waiting for someone to call me to make a appointment in 3 months. In the mean time keep doing what I am doing for the MS.
It is clear to me that this treatment is all about UCSF getting what they want out of the patients visit and not about caring for the patient. The care and testing they have given me has not in any way helped me to get a clear diagnosis of exactly what type of MS I have and the best way to treat it. Going to a hospital or clinic that prides itself with helping all MS cases in ways other doctors can not is a very exciting prospect. I have only been run through their mill that feels like a unavailable, uncaring, assembly line run to health care. There was no gain for me going through all this, in fact the stress and complete let down of possible help has made things worse for me. We all know that stress is something that patients with MS need to stay away from and this clinic should be based on creating a happy fun environment so that the process of getting help does not make symptoms and energy levels worse. That is the basics.
I feel that the teaching part of the teaching hospital or clinic is clearly for the intern doctors. I thought that I would be taught wonderful things I needed to know about MS, my exact MS and clear ways to advance my medical care. The teaching is clearly not for me it is for the interns to have that on their profiles. I am not being taught anything except that trying to get help will take hours of my precious time to get 15 minutes with a specialists that has no time or interest in patients. The entire hospital is for research, and to teach the intern doctors what they need to now to move on with their careers. I was so hopeful that this would be the place that would provide me with help and answers. USCF wants to provide the interns with experience, knowledge, at the expense of the patients time and health. The interns spend time with the patients while the Doctors with the experience are not available.
There is clearly a huge leadership problem with the administrative department at UCSF. The inters are used for there time running the hospital and clinics. The nurses and aids are the only thing holding everything together. They have compassion, skill, professional ability, and totally run the hospital and clinic. I was admitted to the UCSF hospital in June for MS problems and the experience was exactly the same as the MS clinic. I was discharged in much worse health than when I was admitted. I was so ill they sent me home in a ambulance! It was a horrible experience. The doctors seldom show up and when they do it is so brief that so little is accomplished. It feels like UCSF has become a research hospital and clinics so there is no room for the patients who really need health care. If a patient decides to go to UCSF MS clinic or hospital you must know that your time is of little value. You will have long exams from interns, waiting, difficultly getting appointments, may never see the doctor who has the experience that is best suited for your MS problem, hardly ever being able to talk to anyone over the phone, and you may never get the help you are looking for. If you are willing to do this, just know ahead of time what you are getting into so that you will have as little stress throughout these events as possible.

This is a horrible place. Don’t go here for your MS care. Please.
I was diagnosed with MS in 1999 at the UCSF/​Mount Zion MS Center. At that time, it was a multidisciplinary team of doctors and psychologists all dedicated to very complex symptom management, ongoing pharmacological therapy, and care of the individual, based on the individual’s needs. I was able to get in to see a doc within a few days of having new symptoms and never had to go to the ER after my initial (and very frightening) diagnosis. I moved away for about nine years, never quite having the same kind of overall care that I experienced back at UCSF back in ’99-’00.
However, once I returned to the Bay Area and resumed my care at UCSF, it’s been nothing but a nightmare. First, the MS Center got absorbed into the neurology clinic up at Parnassus, which feels like a stockyard. Cattle call clinic, I called it. My former doctor had left, but I got someone else whom I had met back in the old days. Problem was, he was a researcher (as almost everyone at UCSF is) and he was never available and his nurse never returned my phone calls. I had been on interferon for almost ten years an wanted off because of the severe depression it was causing. When I had a relapse and I couldn’t get in to see my doc — or any MS doc — I ended up in the ER with a resident who prescribed such a huge number of steroid pills that even the pharmacist questioned its safety and had to get out a bunch of books and make a bunch of phone calls before filling the prescription. I ended up back in the ER two days later with some terrifying side effects from the steroids, and decided to go off all meds. Soon after that, my MS doc left UCSF and I was assigned to someone else.
This new doc was a clinician, not a researcher, so I was happy. It turned out not to make any difference anyway. At the MS Center, you have to schedule regular «follow ups» to see your MS doc, but you can never see him or her when you’re actually having a relapse. You can call a nurse, but you always have to leave a message and they might never call you back. Even if they call you back, they just tell you to go to the ER or wait til your next follow up. What’s the point of having an MS Center that cannot see patients when they’re sick?
Getting MRI results from them is also pretty scary. If you can get through to a live person on the phone, it’s never a doctor. At other medical clinics, only doctors can give test results over the phone to a patient. I always thought RN and LVN licenses didn’t allow them to do that. But at the UCSF MS Center, that’s who gives you your MRI results. Then they sometimes give you the wrong results! I recently got «great news – no changes!» from a nurse, only to get a call a few hours later from a doc that there were some very concerning «alerts» from the radiologist on the report, and I needed more testing immediately to rule out an aneurysm. I was supposed to have that testing done «stat,» which means within 48 hours. It was done a week later. Getting those results was an added nightmare that ended my relationship with UCSF forever.
Yes, they’ve moved to a more convenient location, and are not a part of the huge neurology clinic, but the care has not changed one bit. The bottom line is, if you only want to see an MS specialist when you are not having any new symptoms and you just need refills on your meds, this place is fine. If you’d like to see an MS specialist when you’re having new symptoms, don’t go here. My partner is a former UCSF doc (family practice, twenty years) and she begged me not to go to UCSF but I didn’t listen. A friend of hers (another doctor) with MS goes down to Stanford, and she lives in the city too. I’m transferring all my care to Stanford. UCSF is a mess and it’s getting worse. No one needs to be treated that way, especially when they’re sick.

I have MS and run an MS Wellness group with nearly 300 people. I can’t speak for anyone who went on treatment here, but as someone who sought medical treatment here for MS from a drug free perspective, I was not able to get any assistance whatsoever. I received the news that my memory was not what it should be based on my educational background and status, but they offered no cognitive rehab treatment. Not everyone with MS wants to continue to get worse or forced to go on medications in order to stabilize this condition. The Center needs to offer cognitive rehab treatment for MS patients, on or off medications if it really wants to make an impact for those of us with MS. And it took many months to get an appointment with Dr. Green (to whom I was referred) who was only available very limited hours. I don’t need to come to a top facility to only tell me the only thing they can do is put me on medication when I am trying to get pregnant. Medication is not an option for me, but I still need help for MS! I have (sadly) gotten the message consistently that the only help doctors want to give for MS is what makes them a profit, putting a patient on medication, not sincerely help them to get better. UCSF is no different in this regard.

Good heavens — I have to completely agree with Carol, and question the validity of the previous review based on simply a phone call rather than the quality of treatment received by established patients. My husband has been a patient at UCSF’s MS Center for quite a few years now and we have nothing but praise for their staff and facilities. Granted, the location and access is pretty terrible, but once you get in there, the quality of care, concern, and up-​to-​the minute knowledgeable treatment is unsurpassed. We drive up from the South Bay, bypassing Stanford at the suggestion of a Stanford physician, because, for this particular specialty, UCSF is simply the best in the area. If you have any need for their care, do not hesitate for a minute!

Things must have changed since Lee W. wrote his review 5 years ago. My daughter, having been disappointed with care at another medical center in S.F., started treatment at UCFS Multiple Sclerosis Clinic and has nothing but praise for their program. Someone is always available to answer questions, when the recommended medication was not covered by her insurance the Center’s nurse enabled her to find financial help, and the program offers emotional support as well as caring medical treatment for a complex illness.

My local neurologist referred me to the UCSF Multiple Sclerosis Clinic due to newly diagnosed MS. The neurologist who saw me (Dr. Timothy West) at UCSF proved to be deeply knowledgeable and a skilled communicator. He provided detailed diagnostic, prognostic, and pharmaceutical information.