UCSF Primary Care at China Basin

I had an awful experience at UCSF and I would caution everyone to be very careful of them. My wife and I waited years to get into their system. We finally were able to get appointments for a new primary care physician - Dr. Chloe Courchesne. As I was driving in, I got a notification that the meeting had switched to virtual. The doctor seemed nice and friendly, but my mom is an employee benefits lawyer, so I knew that I needed to be careful about asking too many questions etc. I answered only the questions she asked, and the meeting lasted 20 minutes. A month later, I was double billed and apparently she is claiming the zoom call was not only a new patient on boarding, but also a checkup so now I have to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket. What is very interesting is my wife was billed entirely differently for the exact same appointment, even same day. Having to try to communicate with anyone at UCSF to get answers about this bill has been impossible. They are essentially refusing to review. This has been incredibly stressful, and will have a lasting impact on my trust of doctors and the healthcare system.

UCSF understaffs and has very small windows for patient provider scheduled time slots. This puts providers behind schedule and likely results in decreased quality of care. I have regularly experienced wait times > than 30 minutes past appointment time. Today, I was seen > 1 hour after the scheduled appointment time. UCSF has systematically reduced staffing, not filling empty positions and making it difficult to get to work by resending the ability for staff to park onsite which seems to be a covert effort to further decrease without the poor optics of layoff.

I've been a patient here for years and can't recommend them. They are EXTREMELY expensive, even given the currenttly astronomical prices for Healthcare. Multiple times I've been seen for an annual wellness exam, which is covered as part of my insurance, and when I honestly answered how I was doing, naming a few minor issues, they turned it into an extra billing event. A 10 minute appointment which should have been free cost over $500. No procedure, no meds, no imagining, just a basic exam and 5 minutes of discussion (call it 15 including the writeup, which was dictated automatically). How can they sleep at night charging so much? Most people cannot afford it, and I have "good" health insurance! On top of that, appointments are generally booked weeks in advance. Telling patients to go to urgent care for routine issues is not a good way to run a "world class" clinic.

I had a very frustrating experience with this practice and will not be back. I went in for a preventative visit that should have been fully covered by my insurance, but it was miscoded and I was billed over $800. It took nearly a year and countless phone calls and emails to get the issue corrected, including receiving notices that the balance would be sent to collections. Reading other reviews, it looks like this exact issue has happened to others as well. I mentioned a medical condition I suspected I had. Dr. Obiora looked at me like I was nuts, dismissed the concern, suggesting it was essentially body dysmorphia. I have since been formally diagnosed with that condition - a progressive disorder that worsens the longer it goes undetected and I'm now scheduled for 2 surgeries to address. After Dr. Obiora left the practice, I was reassigned to a male doctor. I called because I’m not comfortable seeing a male physician and was told by the office manager that I had been reassigned to a female doctor and that MyChart would update. Later, when I tried to schedule, I was told I was still assigned to the male doctor and that I had missed some unspecified window to establish care with the female doctor I had been previous confirmed with. I asked to speak with the manager again and was told he would call me back that afternoon. He never did.

If you don't want to be charged unexpectedly, don't come here. Got unexpectedly charged twice and had no way to get my money back. I went to this place check my ankle injury. In the scheduling phone call, I confirmed twice that the visit will be covered by my insurance and I won't need to pay anything out of pocket. After the visit, they billed me $400+. My partner went through a similar situation here for an annual check-up and also got charged unexpectedly. What kind of ridiculous institution is this?