Orthocarolina – Ballantine

I want to give zero stars but Unilocal requires at least one star to write review. If you want good healthcare you’re much much much better off either starting with a good physical therapist in Charlotte or going out of town. Orthocarolina owns Charlotte and they are one huge conglomerate mess. There’s success in numbers and this place is all about that. If you want unindividualized care, if you want impersonal staff interaction, if you want hurried doctors that act as if they’re annoyed by your questions, if you love throwing money at the wind, doctors that really don’t try and ask you questions to gauge your condition, and if you are good with not getting any real answers about a major condition that’s affecting your whole life, well boys and girls this is THE place for you! They’re website boasts excellence, care, and service! That’s a joke and makes me laugh now as I have to find humor in all of this to keep myself from losing all sanity over the worst healthcare experience I’ve ever come across in my life. I write this review to advise anyone out there to do their homework and be very careful in choosing their healthcare provider. Unfortunately Charlotte is a big city with a lot of people and this company rests on that with ease as I’m sure they’re staff and doctors can sleep well at night knowing they’ll be paid well regardless of the type of service they provide.

Went in to see Christopher ‘Rob’ Powers, PA-​C and was SO pleased with this gentleman! He was REALLY thorough, and knew within a few minutes what my issue were (both knee and elbow issues which I had no idea why I was experiencing such pain). He even was personable with my son, who had to accompany me. His recommendations were very proactive, but were also NON-​surgical and NON-​medication oriented. He felt that some anti inflammatory meds could help, but was honest that this would only help the pain and not address the issue. Re-​building the injured areas required more maintenance than that. I am so pleased and will be going back HERE if I ever need Ortho-​care again!

This South Charlotte location is sparkling clean, large, busy,& has parking. I initially thought things would go well for our child at OrthoCarolina (OC) but this wasn’t to be the case. OrthoCarolina Monroe referred our 11 yr. old to Ballentine for surgery planning for an elbow fracture from a garage fall. The surgical planning appnt was done almost completely by PA (Cofer). The PA didn’t share my concern about waiting 8 days from injury for surgery and also did not share my concerns about whether more xray views were needed of son’s elbow. There were only 2 views, despite a radiology discrepancy. Additionally, the PA splinted our son’s arm, but the splint resulted in terrible pain & emergency resplinting was needed the next day. While OC waived the copay for resplinting, the appnt didn’t go in med records. Unfortunately for our child, despite Dr. Clark’s surgery, months of PT, & a consult with Dr. Gaston, our son types with primarily just his pinky on right hand, doesn’t play on basketball teams anymore, and he has a school 504. Optimistically, Dr. Clark wrote a kind letter that «…you always have a multitude of options…» Looking for options, we’ve taken our child to teaching hospitals. Within NC, the case has been shared with Duke, Wake Forest Brenners, & UNC. They struggle to offer 1 option for improvement & seem sad/​shocked, occas. asking if extra students & Drs. may examine son’s arm. We’ve heard discussions about pin-​out-​of bone & subluxation & why weren’t there more xrays, –10 pronation, RUS, Montegio fracture, 8 days to surgery, synostosis…, long-​term shoulder/​hand/​elbow problems etc… Worryingly, OrthoCarolina failed to diagnose the problem of synostosis (bone in wrong spot) & we’ve had to learn much at teaching medical schools. OC has some good people, but the system feels over-​loaded & disorganized. Patients may be falling through cracks. My suggestion is consider 1^st calling a NC teaching hospital for initial treatment. If you do PT, make sure your PT gets enough info from your Dr. Consider insisting that a Dr. thoroughly review PA’s plan./ med. recrds. Get/​read copies of your own med. rcrds. Realize that if you went to another facility 1^st, you have to get xrays/​radiology rprts from there too. Ask that CD’s of xrays be labeled. At 1 consult, a Duke Dr. said this disc doesn’t have all your child’s xrays. If you suspect problems, email/​MyChart Drs for advice. Seek consults widely, & ask Drs if they have done legal advice for hospitals. Consults can be affordable. Research on internet or at Novant’s Matthew’s Med Library. Post experiences, good & bad. Get consults early. We seem to have missed a short window for really helping our child. Healthcare improves with our detailed posts! Good Luck :)