William Chin Ling Yip, MBBS

Dr. William Yip appears to be the expert pediatric cardiologist in Singapore. He knows his stuff and is wonderful in that grandfatherly way. He was warm and connected well with my 6-​year old son. When you get his attention, he spends the time to help you to understand his perspective. The clinic has one stationary ultrasound and one stationary ECG machine on site in a diagnostics room. That room becomes a major bottleneck — a clinic with this much traffic should have more diagnostic machines. Here’s why there are three stars…
The clinic is pure chaos. We arrived on time for a 2:20 PM appointment. I kid you not — we left at 5:30 PM. While we were trying to check in the woman at the front desk got distracted and walked away from the desk several times. We never knew if she was done, if we should sit down, or keep standing there. Meanwhile, there are streams of families holding their crying babies — some are emergencies with no appointment, some are other situations with no appointment, some have appointments in 30 minutes, some have appointments that passed long ago. The digital number that says, «Now Serving» is completely different from the numbers they’re passing out. You don’t have a good sense of how much longer the process will take, whether the technicians in the diagnostic room (where they have the EKG machines and ultrasound) are ready for you or not.
When you go in to see Dr. Yip, you’re thinking — «Finally, I get to see the doctor!» — but then there are four other parents holding babies hovering around Dr. Yip and his desk like it’s the Soviet Union. Yeah — weird. They’re finally shoo-​ed out by the yellow jacketed women (that’s apparently the uniform for the ladies who work there). You’re talking with Dr. Yip, and he stands up and just disappears and you don’t know whether to follow him. You’re finally told by one of the yellow jacketed assistants that you should go back to the waiting room. It’s really crazy how much waiting there is in this clinic. When you are called back to the doctor’s office to consult with the doctor, he is nice and explains things, but you feel rushed (maybe because there are yellow jacketed women opening the door and coming in and out throughout your $ 250 — 5 minute consult). You feel rushed and nerve-​wracked. You feel like if you don’t spit it all out, you’ll miss your chance. A woman randomly hollered out to me: «Is this your first time here? Not quite like the US, is it?»
The ICAC does not take insurance so it’s all paid by you up front. I paid $ 800 for a doctor consult + EKG + ultrasound. There are probably a lot of things the clinic could do to be more efficient, customer-​oriented, better in terms of their communications and reduce the frustration of dealing with this busy office. That said, we will continue to see Dr. Yip every 6 months because when it comes to pediatric cardiology, he’s the man and seems to be the only game in town.