Brunst Robert F, MD PhD

Have been with Dr. Brunst and his staff for over a year. Generally, you feel well served, with Dr. Brunst and Dr. Das. However, the follow up from staff, and billing statements are not timely. I received billing from over a year ago, which appear to have not been processed. I have had blood tests that were not called backed and advised. YOU need to follow up with this team and stay on top of them. Better to go elsewhere. This is NOT health care in the 21^st Century. (At least from my perspective).

I’ll start of by saying that Dr. Brunst and Das are amazing doctors. I’ve never had a bad experience with them. Their staff on the other hand is HORRIBLE. They are beyond rude. It almost feels as if they are annoyed at you for asking to schedule an appointment or refill a prescription — even though that’s their job!
I had to get a prior authorization on a prescription and was told by the pharmacy that they would fax the info over to Dr. Brunst’s office and have them contact my insurance to figure it out. A week later, I hadn’t heard anything so I called Dr. Brunst’s office. The lady on the phone told me they were busy and it would be better for me to call my insurance directly and have them fax over the form. They also said that they never received the fax from my pharmacy…
I go ahead and call my insurance and spend about 1.5 hours on the phone trying to get through to the right people, only to find out that I don’t have the authorization to call and my doctors office has to be the one to call.
I call Dr Brunst’s office and WENDY picks up the phone. I tell her the situation and mention that I’m frustrated because it’s now been two weeks and things haven’t gotten anywhere. She forcefully tells me that ‘this is not her problem and it’s my own health insurance so I should be the one dealing with it, not her.’ She also tells me that Dr. Brunst’s office ‘does not do this for patients’ although the last time I called the lady said they had a large pile of them they were getting through and it was just taking some time to call each insurance company.
I decided to ask Wendy for her name and boy did that change her tone. She went from a bitchy, scathing tone to someone a bit fearful, as she should be.
I called back and made sure to speak to someone other than Wendy and Theresa was very helpful. My question is: Why does Dr. Brunst have this horrible, horrible people working for him? I’m sure there are plenty of people who would love a job in that office and do a much better job. I almost changed doctors because of the way I was treated.
Anyway — I needed to vent. If you can put up with the awful customer service then Dr. Brunst truly is a great doc.

Ok. So my husband has gone to Dr. Brunst and liked him. I called to schedule appt for him and the individual that answered the phone was in such a rush. I then had to ask question regarding my father and whether Dr Brunst would be able to help me and then she told me «please hold» and my phone now says I have been on the phone for 9min since I first reached them. I suppose she was too busy to answer any questions and decided to put me on hold while she went off to help the easier clients or calls. Unfortunately, I can’t say much for this office and will be finding another doctor for my husband, father, and myself (I went to Dr. DAS once, he was super nice but again I thought I made an appt for Dr. Brunst but when in office I ended up seeing Dr. DAS and was very surprised when he entered the room at first). I thought first time was a fluke of miscommunication but I can clearly see the issue here now. I am finishing my review and my phone now says 11:26 seconds. I ended hanging up while still waiting on hold. It’s quite unfortunate that Dr Brunst and Dr. DAS appear to be wonderful doctors but due to their help staff that people are strongly swayed to go elsewhere but that is the way the wheel turns! We have to deal with the front desk much more than the doctor. I hope the doctors are alerted to these reviews and take a more aggressive approach to marrying their style of treatment along with the help desk staff they employ.

Dr. Brunst was great! However, I think the front desk assistants are uncoordinated between themselves. There may be a communication disconnect between them. My wife and I went to see him for to get her paperwork for her immigration/​change of status/​green card. We were told it would be ready «tomorrow» four days in a row when calling in. Based on our experience I think I would recommend Dr. Brunst as long as you don’t have any urgent paperwork needs. I do have faith that the paperwork we received will pass USCIS standards… just took a week of hassle and delay to receive it. Hope this helps!

I was referred here by a great friend of mine, I was having very high blood pressure, and my heart was racing, went to another doctor that said, Oh yes you do have very high blood pressure, but let’s get blood work done before I give you something for your blood pressure, meanwhile next day was feeling horrible and body going numb, called Dr Brunst and was seen right away, thank goodness, cause my blood pressure was 190÷110… DR Brunst and his team are amazing!!! Thank you soooo much for taking good care of me!!! Oh and by the way your staff is amazing too!!!

Dr. Brunst has been my family doctor for over 25 years and he has always taken care of me and my family so well. He likes to talk and joke around and treats you like extended family. Especially when he hasn’t seen you in awhile, he’ll be performing routine exam treatments and ask you about your life and you can’t help but spill because you know he’s taking it all in. I am always grateful when my mom goes in to see him and she always has great stories about her experience with Dr. Brunst.
I’ve been feeling under the weather for the last couple days. And usually I’ll try and avoid going to the doctor and try to use over the counter remedies. But when you’ve been sick on and off for the past two months as I’ve been then it was about due time to call. If I call in for an appointment, I can usually be seen the next day.
Today I saw his partner, Dr. Das. Dr. Das is just as great too! He saw me today and was able to have me in and out with the prescription in about 15 minutes. Who needs the long waiting room magazine binges and sitting on a paper lined bench for longer than ever required. I asked him my silly questions about prescription drugs because my boyfriend is allergic to penicillin and I wanted to make sure I was taking an antibiotic with one I didn’t set off a chain reaction to him. haha hey I had to ask and make sure all my bases were covered.
Even though I’m downtown majority of the time, I will still make the drive to see Dr. Brunst and Dr. Das. My family and I have a long medical history with his practice (thankfully little check-​ups here and there, nothing too serious) and I hope someday when I have my own family that he’ll be able to see them as well.

Terrible back office service. The Doctor is adorable but the staff taking care of my paperwork was much less than effective. Some medical records I needed urgently for immigration reasons that should have taken 2 visits took 4. They first told me over the phone the medical report was ready on a Monday (after my examination). When I came to get it it was not ready, so I had to come a third time. Then the report was not provided sealed and stamped as is required by the US Gov so I had to come back and ask them to follow the process they charged good money for in the first place. This is one of the Civil surgeons that is appointed by the US Gov to do these kind of vaccination examinations and one would expect the admins at the office would know the protocol. Well, it was certainly not the case. The staff was neither friendly not apologetic when I had to come back the fourth time, which would likely fix most of my frustration, but again it didn’t happen. There are other Civil Surgeons in the Encinitas area available for this kind of medical examinations, I wish I had chosen a different one.

I signed my husband up with Dr B’s office since our insurance chg’d due to obama care with covered california (brother!)…my present doctors did not accept this insurance even though its a PPO… WHATEVER…
Anyway, i made an appt on Monday and got my husband in the next day!
When we arrive at the drs office my husband said that maybe i should have my cough checked while we were here. So i asked at the reception desk if the doctor would see me even if i wasn’t a patient… he did!
Good front desk service and Dr. B has such a nice bedside manner… i would recommend this Dr and Drs. Office !

My mother just moved to Carlsbad. Had the best experience with Dr Das and Dr Brunst. Said the Drs truly listened to her and identified and addressed every issue. She’s been feeling great and will definitely be returning! Thanks Docs!

My husband and I have seen Dr. Brunst starting around 1987. He is fantastic. I second Sunny D.‘s response that he is also hilarious. He will level with you and tell you the truth – but in a very kind way. He helped me with several big issues that I won’t go into here, but he diagnosed them accurately when other doctors diagnosed them incorrectly. My husband – a Ph.D. scientist – was the person who found Dr. Brunst originally. My husband thinks he’s fantastic too.

I drive from LA to SD just to see Dr. Brunst. I refuse to make any other physician my primary care doctor.
He is simply the best. Anything I say about him or his professionalism is an understatement. DECADES of experience cannot ever be replaced with some newbie with a shiny degree, some fancy website and cheesy headshot.
I have been with Dr. Brunst for about 10 years now and he has always been honest, patient, gets straight to the point and ALWAYS hilarious :) My mother, father, and both sisters all have him as their primary care physician — that says a lot doesn’t it?
Quite frankly the man knows his sh*t. If you’re looking for a new doctor you would be smart to book an appointment with him — no regrets.

I have been seeing Dr. Brunst for many years and I like him as a doctor. His front desk has changed faces over the years, but one thing has always been true; Dr. Brunst has the RUDEST, MOST REPULSIVE STAFF around. This year I finally walked out because of his nasty front desk child ANGELA. I hope that Dr. Brunst realizes that regardless of his care, his practice is affected by his horrible staff.

I’ve been going to Dr. Brunst for over ten years and I’ve always found him an excellent doctor and pleasant man. He’s straightforward and to the point, which I appreciate. Every ailment or injury I’ve gone in for has been correctly diagnosed and quickly treated – after a decade, he’s still batting 1000. I have had no trouble with prescriptions, either new ones or getting old ones refilled. He is also happy to make referrals if I request them.
While he is a lovely person and quite jocular, however, he does not coddle his patients. If you are oversensitive or if you want a doctor who will be saccharine and hold your hand, he’s probably not your man.
The staff issues others have written about here are legitimate. It seems, however, some of the worst members of the front office have gone. I must admit in the past they’ve left an extremely bad impression, so much so that I can’t in good conscience give Dr. Brunst’s practice five stars. But I prefer to focus on the the professionalism and skill that he, his associate and new nurse all possess.

I stumbled upon reviews for Dr. Brunst in my search for a new doctor and due to all of the positive comments I decided to give him a try. Overall I was fairly satisfied with the diligence of his questions and meticulous note taking. He seemed genuinely concerned about the problems that I was having and did not discount any symptom I brought up.
My disappointment lies in two places: his brash comment about the length of time in which I had been breastfeeding my daughter (not to mention his ENCOURAGEMENT to STOP because she was over a year old), and within his inability to call me with test results. He enthusiastically promised to call me personally within 2 – 3 days with my test results but within a week I still hadn’t heard back from him. I finally called the front office to ask if I should just schedule an appointment to come in instead and the receptionist replied, «Yes, definitely. He’s not going to call you.» She made it seem like this was the sort of thing he did all the time.
I finally made it in a few days later and Dr. Brunst had no idea who I was and no idea why I was there. I gave him the benefit of the doubt because I was a new patient, but after he explained the results of the tests he stood up to leave without trying to explain any correlations to the symptoms I had been having. I had to probe him for the information. He is very experienced and is well versed in medicine, but personally I just felt rushed out the door.
I strongly believe that he would be an amazing family doctor, one that you would want to build a relationship with and come to for all of your health concerns. He just wasn’t the right doctor for me.

My family and I have been seeing Dr. Brunst for about 10 years, we feel so lucky to have found him! Excellent doctor who will always go above and beyond to meet your needs. However, their office staff seem to be disorganized and often misinformed. They will bill the wrong insurance, won’t follow through on prescription work, etc. Some years with certain staff have been great, and then other’s with different staff were difficult.

I highly recommend Dr. Brunst and encourage everyone to try him!
He’s meticulous, skilled, friendly and on top of his game.
He has welcomed a new doctor to his practice who meets his high standards too!
The office staff is warm and efficient and a pleasure to work with!

This one is difficult to rate because the services given by Dr. B vs. the from desk personnel are quite different:
I have been going with Dr. Brunst for several years. He is awesome and I would give him 5 stars, but the front desk personnel deserves 1 start as it is rude and make one feel uncomfortable — I used to believe that their unpleasant behavior was directed to my person only, but now I know that this feeling is mutual with other reviewers.
To be fair with Dr. B, my overall rating is 3 stars

Dr. Brunst himself has great skills and a very warm manner.
It’s getting past his front office staff however, that is the problem. That staff is rude, abrasive, brusque, curt, obnoxious and arrogant. They are convinced that it is they who run Dr. Brunst’s business, not him. They are also convinced that it is your privilege to put up with them and their grossly unprofessional behavior.
Considering how many doctors are out there and how competitive the field is for new patients — i.e. how few actual now have medical coverage that can thus pay for doctor visits — it’s rather shortsighted of Dr. Brunst to have such employees who are driving his business into the ground.

Good doctor with a sense of humor and nice ‘bedside manner.’
The comments the person made about ‘poisoning’ his wife who has Rheumatoid Arthritis with steroids — first let me tell you my sister has RA as have several family members.
This serious and awful condition is an auto immune disorder (not to be confused with the more common osteoarthritis) and MUST be monitored by a rheumatologist — not an internist. And the side effects mentioned are well known by anyone familiar with cortisone, and not the fault of the doctor. Everyone gets those if they stay long term on steroids.
Sadly there is currently NO remedy for RA at this time that doesn’t have heavy side effects, and RA itself predisposes one to other illnesses (lymphoma etc). Awful disease but these side effects and symptoms are not the fault of the kindly and competent Dr Brunst, and I believe its wrong and slanderous to say things like this in a public forum that are so unfair and uninformed.
Also the good doctor recently diagnosed my friend’s toe with gout — this same painful oozing toe he’d been seeing another Encinitas doctor for over a year and he never caught that disease at all! After the treatment the issue was solved.
The downside on Dr B. is he doesnt work full time, I think his office hours are limited to a few days per week,.

Both my husband and I go to Dr. Brunst as well as both of my parents (when they are in California). He will listen to you, look you in the eye, and give you the time you need to express your concerns. He is good with seniors. My parents are seniors and like him, and there are always a lot of seniors in the waiting room when I’m there. My dad went there once without an appointment on a Tuesday afternoon and they made time for him and he got to see him within an hour.
He is closed on Wednesdays. If you are going to get a general physical, you have to get your blood drawn first before you go to your appointment (just so you know, you have to get your blood drawn at a separate location).
He has a wonderful bedside manner, is very wise and has a lot of experience.