La Mesa Pediatrics

I just can’t tell you how much I love this office. Everyone is so caring and nice! My kids have been coming to this office for about 6 years now and I have never had a bad experience. They don’t just heard you through, they care! Meaghan is 100% amazing! She always makes sure to cover everything, so much so that when she asks if there are any questions at the end… We have none! We trust the medical professionals in this office with all of our hearts and our children’s lives. I am a certified Medical Assistant and CNA so I understand the basics, and I love that they don’t just write prescriptions and send you out the door. If you want the best for your children then look no further. Thank you La Mesa Pediatrics for being the best

After reading the reviews– obviously I’m not the only one that feels this way. On Christmas eve 2015 I went there with a sick child. I had a whopping $ 300 balance — in front of everyone in the lobby — they told me they would not let me see the doctor without making a payment and made a $ 50 payment in the office.. I had been making small payments. I talked to Dr. Clay about this issue and she was very cold and uncaring. She acted like she could care less. I will not take my child back to her or anyone in that office. She –like everyone else in the office –said it wasn’t their responsibility and they were just an employee.

Took 3 days if calling to get someone to call back for my son to get in just to get a referral he has already had before.
Got to appt 15 minutes early checked in a girl off the street had no appt and got seen before me wtf

This Pediatrician is very conveniently located, and the North Entrance makes coming and going easy. The reason I gave this Office 1 star is because of the few simple things that were missed upon my daughters initial visit which had an adverse effect on her health, and my peace of mind. After seeking a second opinion I was disappointed and upset to say the least, but most of all relieved to have my daughters health improve. I didn’t take my daughter to a pediatrician to be treated like a number, only to find their lack of attention to detail made my brand new baby daughter suffer.
I will never go back to this practice nor refer them to anyone I care about.

This place is 5 stars, the staff work very efficiently in getting things done, returning phone calls, and answering the phone. From my experience, when I call I am not on the call for longer then 1 minute before staff answers. When I have a question, staff is quick to help me. Vaccine appointments have walk-​in hours which are convenient for working mom’s and dad’s. Booking appointments are immediate, and you do not have to wait 2 months out for physicals or other appointments. This office is staffed very well and they want to work with you.
The waiting room has visual stimulation for children should they need it or parents need to fill out forms. There is a fish tank, books and wall toys. This place meets everyone’s needs. Staff are very very welcoming to parents and children and say hi and greet you as if they are excited to see you. I should have never left this place,

My 4 month old son sees Dr. Imes and he’s great. Dr. Short did my sons circ and did a great job on that also. Wait times have been minimal, dr’s and nurse are personable and know their stuff. Sometimes wait times when calling to schedule an apt are long but that’s the worst thing I can think of. I’d recommend anyone looking for a good pediatric group to come here

I’m very satasfied with the staff and dr. Weber they provided me with excellent service even though I was thirteen min late They took me in quickly I found the best place and the best dr. For my daughter. I recommend this place to every parent looking for honesty and people who really care for your children’s needs.

I highly recommend La Mesa Pediatrics. The staff are extremely helpful and professional.

I wish I would give no stars, this place used to be run tight and my kids loved it. It used to be one of he best pediatrics office in San diego. They had a friendly atmosphere and happy to help doctors. Now it’s just another superficial office with doctors who don’t care about their patients. Especially doctor Clay who has no business being a pediatric doctor, has no bedside manor, and no tact. My kids went in smiling and came out hysterical. This is not a place I would refer anyone to please spare your kids from this horror.

Dr. Short is awesome! Came here for our first appointment with my son and he was very informative. He laid all our fears to rest, which to be honest were many due to this being our first child. The office had an aquarium which was awesome, It did seem that the cast of finding nemo was there too! The staff here were very informative and patient as well. I would say the greatest aspect is the dr short being on call for any emergency, and really does call back in 5 mins or less. In my opinion he is one of the best!

We have been with La Mesa Pediatrics for almost 3 years since my first daughter was born and have nothing but great things to say. Wait times for appt. are never an issue and I can schedule them for the times that work best for me and the kids. We never wait more than 20 mins once at the office, even for sick appointments. The nurses are so kind and friendly to every member of our family and our Dr., Richard Short, makes sure that we have all questions answered and goes over everything with us to make sure we understand.
We also just had some test run on my younger daughter and we had them performed at Rady’s Childrens Hospital, and by that evening I received a call from Dr. Short himself letting us know the results, even though the results were that nothing came up on the test. You usually only get that kind of a quick turnaround time when it is something bad, but they took the time to put a mother’s worry at ease. We love this office

We have been coming here for 4 years and love the Doctors at this practice. This office was recommended to me by a friend in investigations at the State medical board-​I take this persons advice 10x more seriously than any Unilocal reivew but here we go.
The staff has always been friendly and courteous to us, I have had not problems with getting a sick appointment the same day. Dr. Short, Durango, Szold and Webber have been very kind, gentle and compassionate. And the nurse practitioner is great. The office wait time is average and they really take their time to explain things to you thoroughly, I never feel rushed.
One thing that I really like is If I ever leave a message for a Dr. I receive a call back the same day, I actually had to do that this morning and I received a call back within 15 minutes from Dr. Webber!
I have never had any problems with the front office staff or medical assistants and I know for a fact I have bugged them with questions many, many times.
Personally I have never had any of the problems others have listed by others at all.

The doctors here are great – my kids actually like going to the doctor. The doctors always take time to answer my questions, and I never feel rushed. So much more personal than going to a big healthcare conglomerate.

My husband and I love this practice. Dr. Clay is sweet and gentle. Dr. Short is kind and patient. Susan, the NP is great with kids.
Our favorite part is the early AM hours, the after work hours and also the ability to avoid Urgent Care on Saturdays.
Also, if you call afterhours they let you talk to an actual doctor in the middle of the night. We sought out this practice to find one similar to the care we had growing up.
Highly recommend!

We have been here twice. Our baby girl is 3 weeks old and we brought her in three days after being born. We saw Meaghan and she was amazing! Everyone here was very friendly and nice. Meaghan was not only attentive to my baby girl but to myself as well. She asked how I was feeling and doing and made me feel good. The front desk lady is very nice as well.

Office staff is rude. But especially the receptionist/​front desk. Do not bring your kids here! Go elsewhere. They could care less about the kids.

Summary: Serious Problems with Administrative staff and insurance claim processing from the Doctor’s Office.
Background: We originally sought Dr. Short out due to a recommendation from a family member. While he is courteous and competent, we have actually discovered some real challenges with processing our claims with the insurance company. In short (no pun intended) their accounting and billing staff appear to be incompetent.
After sharing our experience with our family member who made the initial recommendation, they too also shared that they had substantial trouble with getting insurance to process claims, despite having a completely different insurance company. We began to suspect that perhaps it wasn’t our insurance company that was causing the trouble, as our experiences are nearly identical.
To give you the magnitude of the problem, we recently received notice last week that not just a few, but EVERY doctor’s visit and procedure for roughly the last year been rejected by our insurance. We’ve already spent countless hours with the insurance company trying to sort out what the problem was. We’ve never had a problem like this with our insurance company and we’ve been with them for years.
We had an earlier issue this year with processing a couple of claims for our son’s care immediately following his delivery, and asked the la mesa pediatrics office to assist in sorting out the problem. They were unhelpful, and, after we solved the issue alone, we shared with them that they really needed to work on assisting their clients in sorting things out and to process their paperwork more effectively.
Now this.
I honestly would strongly caution anyone from seeing any doctor at this office — not because of the doctors — but because of the administrative staff. There’s a good chance they will cause you countless hours on the phone trying to sort out insurance claims they likely created in the first place.
One more example — when we received a bill from la mesa pediatrics for a standard baby wellness, we called to ask why it wasn’t covered by insurance. They responded that it probably was, but that insurance just hadn’t paid them yet after 60 days. We asked when the claim was sent: reply was less than 30 days prior.
Rather than call the insurance to process, they instead chose to bill us and drag us into the process. That is an example of either a complete lack of thought, or laziness. Neither is what we expect from our health care providers. If anyone has questions about our experience, please feel free ask.

I have not had good luck at this doctor’s office…
The office staff is difficult to communicate with sometimes. For example, I brought my daughter’s urine sample at home. When I arrived, I notified the receptionist that it needed to be give to the nurse quickly. The receptionist told me to hold on to it until I was called back. We had to wait for quite a while. When we were called back the nurse told me the sample wasn’t good anymore because it had been sitting out more than an hour. Well, I tried to give it to you guys, but you just wouldn’t listen!
I found Dr. Short to be rather short and impatient with my child.
I had good experience with Dr. Mangine but she is no longer with the practice
Dr. Szold tried to put my two year old on a weight management program. I consulted three other doctors that seemed to think she was fine. He spent most of the time lecturing my husband and me how to parent (despite my 10 years of experience working with kids) and very little time addressing my daughter’s medical needs.
Dr. Dorringo is ok. She recommended a VCUG to check for kidney reflux for my daughter. I was ok with her recommendation but I could seem to get her to understand that she had to write the order for stronger sedation for the test. I was frustrated that we couldn’t seem to communicate well about this issue. I switched to Dr. Snyder’s office and it was so easy. They took care of everything for me on the first time! It was such a relief to talk with someone who listened.

I’ve changed my mind about this place… I’m a HUGE fan of Dr Regina Mangine and she has left La Mesa Pediatrics and so will I… all the other Dr’s here are a little «off» for my personal parenting style. If you prefer to ignor your children while they are fighting eachother in a Dr’s office then Dr’s here will be happy to support you. If you are a believer in no milk the first few years of life, this is a good place for you. If you like to be scolded for allowing your child to slip his shoes on and off you will love it here. If you are more interested in natural approaches and not medicating everything then this is not the place for you. Shop around.

Have you ever paid for a movie and the movie started an hour late? Yeah, that’s NEVER happened to me. And it should never happen in the service industry! Every time we have an appointment this happens. We even show up 15 – 20 minutes early. There’s never any seating and just because you painted yours walls pink and purple 20 years ago doesn’t mean you’re a I’d friendly office. Also your fish tank needs to be cleaned.
As far as the doctor/​nurses I can’t complain. They do their job, but sometimes that’s just not enough.