Manhattan Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation

This was by far the worst physical therapy experience of my life. DO NOT GO HERE.
I saw Dr. Wilkins in March of 2014 for a second opinion about an upcoming surgery on my right arm to correct a congenital growth defect. Specifically I wanted advice on how to deal with the pain management aspect of the surgery.
His advice was to start to physical therapy before the surgery. He said «studies show that people who do rehab beforehand have better results and less pain post op. Sounds like a completely safe and reasonable thing to do right? What could go wrong?
I COULDN’T HAVE BEEN MORE WRONG! THEY INJURED MY ARM AND NECK BADLY.
He paired me with a PT named Richa. During our first few sessions she began to manually stretch my shoulder. At first I was extremely guarded but she assured me that she knew what she was doing and that I should trust her. I was hesitant at first but began to see my shoulder loosen up some over a few weeks and began to get a little excited.
As we progress, Richa became more and more overly aggressive and stretched my shoulder and neck way beyond my natural range of motion. It was torture. 6 weeks after we started I began to experience extreme inflammation in my right shoulder and upper arm. I saw Dr. Wilkins again and they assure me that it was nothing to worry about. «Its just a little inflammation» they said. They cut down on the manual stretching, but the damage was already done.
After 8 weeks the inflammation subsided some, but then I began to experience terrible numbness in my right hand and forearm. This turned into severe neuropathy of my radial nerve running from my neck all the way to my hand. I never had any problems like this and I’ll tell you that nerve pain is the worst.
Now for the last 2 months after stopping physical therapy I still have extremely bad nerve pain with no end in sight. She inured my arm worse than it had been when I started! And worst of all he pain has been so bad that the surgery they they were supposed to prepare me for has been postponed indefinitely until the injured nerve heals.
WORST EXPERIENCE EVER.

Unfortunately, I am not able to recommend Manhattan Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation due to the highly disorganized nature of the office. I originally chose this provider because Dr. Wilkins was highly recommended to me by a friend. When I first viewed the website in December 2013, it said that he accepted my insurance. However, during the referral process, it became clear that Dr. Wilkins did not actually accept my insurance, so I saw Dr. Fishman. After having met with Dr. Fishman in January 2014, I am comfortable and agree very much with Dr. Fishman’s approach to diagnosing and treating my lower back pain. However, my HMO has been resistant to Dr. Fishman’s recommendations. At first, I thought it was 100% due to my HMO’s desire to save money, but I am now sure that communication and organization issues within Manhattan Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation are partly to blame. They have lost records and correspondence sent to them by my insurance company and a radiology provider, thus delaying any kind of diagnosis or treatment and resulting in mutual confusion when I call to find out what is going on and inquire about next steps. When my doctor’s request for an MRI was denied by my insurance in February 2014, the insurance company recommended that my doctor conduct a peer-​to-​peer with a doctor working for the insurance company. It is April 2014, and that has not happened yet despite my multiple calls to Manhattan Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and correspondence from my insurance company stating this recommendation. A member of the office staff stated that my insurance company must have their old address from 2 years ago, and that is why the office is not receiving correspondence from them. Even though Dr. Fishman seems like a good doctor, this confusion and disorganization have wasted at least 2 months of my time while I sit in pain.

Dr. Fishman is an incredible listener (rare find), smart, nice and funny. In every visit I spent at least an hour (worth every minute), because Dr. Fishman will examine methodically, thoroughly and carefully, then he’ll review and analyze the results of the study, explaining every bit of it at that very moment. Thanks to Dr. Fishman’s effective diagnosis and analysis, and the physical therapy expertise provided by his practice, the nightmare of my illness slowly became a dream of recovery.
The staff, office manager, secretary, are all very personal, warm and nice! Clean and very comfortable practice. I never had any problem getting an appointment or with having to wait for long. The PT rooms are clean and well care. My therapist was very sweet, nice to work with, very encouraging.
No only will I recommend Dr. Fishman as a good doctor, but as a great human being and a fine gentleman. And Manhattan Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation is the first place to stop if you want to walk pain free and a smile on your face.
Thanks MPTR for your personal attention, concern and involvement!

«Physical therapy should be therapeutic. This place is downright anti-​therapeutic. The office is hectic. The PTs run between patients and don’t remember you from week to week. They also don’t talk to the doctors. It was so bad that I left for another practice in the area which only made this place look worse. My new PT spends the whe time with me in a beautiful, clean, calm environment. Seriously, this is NYC. Why put up with this?

Oh dear. This place is gross. I went for treatment for a stiff neck. For starters, the room smelled of body odor. Then I was told to lay down on my stomach and to put my face through a hole in the table. There was paper on the table, as on a doctor’s examining table, which the girl punched hole through in line with the face hole. This was the extent of any attempt to make this remotely sanitary. So I lay down as instructed with my face smushed through this hole, like hundreds of faces before it. It smelled like faces.
Then the gal hooked me up to some sort of electrical situation, in which little pads attached to wires, leading to a machine, were placed on my back. She switched on the machine and asked, did I feel anything? I didn’t. She said it was turned up high, so she wouldn’t turn it up anymore. Then she left the room. Soon after, I did begin to feel these little pads tingling, then pulling, and then it felt like they were digging little, electric claws into my back. Meanwhile my neck was killing me (by now I had been given a pillow, when I tried to get the paper to better cover the stinky face hole) and I couldn’t get comfortable and I was on the verge of panic. She came back in and I explained my problems to her. She turned the machine down, but still I had to lie there in a most uncomfortable position. It sucked.
I walked out feeling *worse* than when I arrived. Now in addition to my neck hurting, my back hurt where the electro-​claws had dug in. It was very awful, and, therefore, I do not recommend this place. I will say that the girl was very nice though. She seemd like a very nice person.