Plaza OB-GYN Associates

I actually received a personal call from Dr. Balani after submitting a complaint about the service I had received and my faith in this doctor has been renewed. I would recommend her to anyone who might be looking for a place that has a doctor who doesn’t mind giving you personal attention and care and doesn’t just see you as another number.

I had 2 surgeries here by Dr. Balat. The first one he listened to me and did a good job. The second one he had promised to also remove my appendix and didn’t. He also promised to give me laparoscopic surgery and I ended up with a huge c-​section cut. This made my illness worse and I ended up having to go to another doctor to try to correct it, only to find out that by cutting me open like he did advanced my illness. If he had done the surgery correctly the first time I wouldn’t have needed a second or 3^rd surgery. Every time i went I was never there in under 2 hours. don’t recommend him.

This office houses several different doctors. My dr is Dr. Rene Luna and he is the absolute best. I have had several different women doctors in the past few years and he is by far the best. Very clean, caring and knowledgable. The staff is always attentive and willing to answer questions. I love this office!

Dr. Balat performed surgery on my wife 6 years ago for endometriosis. Then 6 months ago we have an ectopic pregnancy after 1 round of fertility drugs prescribed by him. He gave her MTX three times before her fallopian tube ruptured and she had to have emergency surgery and then spend 4 days in an ICU. (Two other doctors have told us since that they would never have given MTX three times in lieu of preventative surgery.) And to top that off, today his office informed us that due to a system crash they would be unable to forward the wife’s medical records from 2007 to our new doctor. His bedside manner is friendly and pleasant. His avuncular ministrations are cute until your wife almost dies… whether from incompetence or bad record keeping. Use caution.

We saw a doctor in this group for the first couple of months of pregnancy and ultimately decided to change. We found both offices (the Binz and the Fannin locations) to be dirty and dated. We felt there was no communication between the doctor and nurse and that neither made a habit of reading the chart. Here are a few examples of things we didn’t care for:
I always had trouble getting through to the nurse’s line. When you call, reception answers the phone and says the nurse will call you back. In our experience, the nurse very rarely called back. Early in the pregnancy, I was experiencing pain and wanted to find out if I could take a medicine my urologist had prescribed prior to my pregnancy. The receptionist said the nurse would call me back. I called three more times across the next two weeks before I finally got connected with the nurse. Her answer: «Oh – didn’t I call you back? The doctor said you should not take that pain med.» When I asked if there was something else I could do to alleviate the pain, she said she hadn’t asked but would. I never heard back from her.
On a separate occasion, we were about 15 minutes into an appointment when I asked about an ultrasound and the nurse turned on her heel with a look of shock and said: «OH – are you pregnant?» Similarly, in a separate appointment, the nurse took my urine sample, weighed me and sent me into the examination room. Within the next 5 minutes she came in and said, «Could you come outside so I can get your weight?» When I told her she had just taken it and written it down, she looked completely shocked and said she didn’t know what she had done with it.
The doctor seemed similarly absent minded to us. I have problems with my thyroid and my endocrinologist advised that it needed to be monitored through my pregnancy. During my first visit to Plaza OBGYN, the OB agreed to assume that responsibility. A few months in, the endocrinologist called to get an update and the OB hadn’t checked the thyroid levels in any of the multiple blood panels he had ordered; he said, «Hm… I don’t have a record that we were supposed to be watching that.»
We found the billing group to be just as unorganized. Despite that we stopped being patients over 3 months ago, I am still getting bills. We have great insurance, but Plaza OBGYN generally claims the insurance made some mistake and so money is still owed. It’s generally stuff in the range of $ 20-​$ 100. On one bill they were super delinquent in sending, I called the office to complain and the clerk advised that they had been having issues with their billing. She advised that I would not receive any more bills from them. Nevertheless, one just rolled in for $ 20.
I would not recommend this place to anyone.