Appelbaum Stanley A

This place — not necessarily this doctor — changed my son’s life. He had interesting issues as a baby — not looking at people, being very sensitive to sound — and as he grew, these issues didn’t get better. But it wasn’t until he started to learn to read in kindergarten that we knew there was a problem.
By the end of 1^st grade, he was still flipping his letters and numbers when he wrote, and he couldn’t even read a Dr. Seuss book. His symptoms mimicked dyslexia — but they were FIXABLE. There is no one else who does this kind of work — so we were thrilled to be in a place that had vision therapy as an option.
After 18 months of extremely expensive therapy, my son was reading chapter books. He is now a normal 5^th grader and has no issues at all — and we are incredibly indebted to Appelbaum and their absurdly expensive (never covered by insurance) therapy. The therapy was time-​consuming but easy and fun for my son. We would do it again in a heartbeat.
The only thing we would *not* do again is buy the $ 380 glasses — twice — which, we later learned, were utterly useless. These were recommended by the doctor to ‘speed up’ the process, but we’re pretty sure they did nothing at all, and our son’s eye doctor said they had no prescription whatsoever in the lenses. And we bought two pairs — so $ 700 of it was a waste. Otherwise it would have been 5 stars. If you suspect your child has a vision processing disorder (and this is really hard to know — find a quiz online!) — it is well worth the money.

I’ve been going to Applebaum Vision /​Applebaum Eyecare Associates for the last 4 – 5 years, mainly because they were close to my work. The doctors at the office seem to be all good at their jobs (non-​expert opinion of course) and pleasant to talk to. However I have experienced a tendency at the practice to pad bills with bogus charges. For instance today I paid an extra $ 60 for contact lens fitting despite no change to my contact lens brand or prescription. I remember in the past something similar had happened that I had to argue to get taken off — but today I was in a rush and didn’t have time to go through the hassle.
Anyway, for the few options I have in Bethesda I guess I’ll be going back to them and taking future hits!

I took my 7 year old son to Dr. Stanley Applebaum on Aug 22,2014 for a vision therapy assessment. Vision therapy itself is amazing and the assessment, although long and Dr. Stan being extremely long winded, surprisingly egotistical and arrogant, was helpful (for my son’s future needs of vision therapy to enhance his reading capabilities). Here is where it gets more than unprofessional and extraordinarily problematic. I told Dr Applebaum that we were referred to his office by my cousin who lives in the Washington, DC area. We, however, do not live nearby, so we were doing the assessment to find out if our son needs vision therapy. We would then need Dr. Applebaum’s formal evaluation to take to a therapist in NYC. After 2 hours of listening to Dr. Applebaum toot his own horn and paying the $ 450 fee, I left hoping that the assessment would be done (as the office staff promised) in a week and faxed immediately to our local vision therapist. Over a week later, I called the office, at which time an exceptionally ill mannered secretary, told me that the my son’s full evaluation was on the doctor’s desk waiting to be faxed and he «will get to it when he gets to it.» I was beyond disturbed by this cavalier attitude toward a very simple request for information that we had already paid for. I reiterated that our new vision therapist in NYC needed the assessment to being the work that my son needs and time is of the essence. To no avail… the secretary was completely unconcerned and callous and that was that. Today we arrived back at our NYC vision therapist’s office for our #3 vision therapy treatment (they were kind enough to begin treatment without repeating the initial assessment). Our new doctor looked at me again and said the assessment had still not been sent. I called Applebaum’s office again and was then told that he mailed it off 2 weeks ago… when it was said to have been on his desk. I then asked for tracking information and or the possibility of reprinting and faxing as previously requested, to which I was told by a different secretary, that she had no jurisdiction in this area and that no one in the office is authorized to make any copies of patient’s records except Dr. Applebaum. I would have to wait for the doctor to call me back…
Long and the short is… this therapist/​office is less than professional, the office is very difficult to deal with at best. If you are looking for an excellent vision therapist in the Washington, DC/​MD/​VA metropolitan area, check out Dr. Robert Jacobs in McLean, Virginia.