Central Coast Cardiology

MONTEREY OFFICE: I prefer the Monterey office over the Salinas one. I do not mind driving the extra 15 – 20 minutes just to be served better by staff and it’s a nicer office all around. I think Central Coast Cardiology has some of the best physicians and physician assistants around! I have been going here for years and I do not have any complaints about the doctors, at either office. I have been seen at both offices. I highly recommend them! Missing Doctor Albert though… too bad he moved away.

Busy office, front staff was unable to find an appointment for my father. He was 2 weeks post op for valve replacement and aortic aneurysm, the VNA’s had called, there are 10 faxes for medication changes and his GP called to try to get him in because he wasn’t well. We went to the ER twice, cardiologists just had medications changed. The second visit they found he had fluid around his heart. Had he been seen in the office 5 days before, perhaps the outcome would not have been his death. They drained over 2 ½ liters of blood from the sac around his heart. There was only 15 days between pulling out the chest tubes and the draining. Unfortunately his heart was unable to oxygenate his blood because it was so compressed, all of his organs were compromised by the time it was figured out. How can the doctors have no time to see a man right after heart surgery who is in distress? Whose physician called? Who came into the office in person?

This is a really busy office! My wait was pretty minimal, which was nice. I met with Dr. Saito, who was very personable and patiently answered all of my questions. I had to see a cardiologist, because a pre-​surgery EKG showed some irregular readings for my heart. Dr. Saito assured me that my ticker seems to be working fine, but we’ll run some tests just to be sure. He explained exactly what the tests would be, so that’s coming up shortly. Very happy with him.

It’s usually the bedside manner some people have and complain about it. With the «office staff» here, you will be hard pressed to even GET to the physician to even learn about their bedside manor. One would think customer service would be part of a receptionist/​office personal that deal with «customers». Granted, it’s not a retail «store» if you will, but nonetheless, they DO have «customers» aka patients… they definitely do NOT have patience, that is certain… nor do they have etiquette — regular OR business. The office manager acts if she is doing YOU a great big favor just by interacting, even the staff roll their eyes when she clicks her heels back and forth across the reception area… and she does it frequently. You should call ahead and see if your physician is actually there, ask them to «please tell me the truth»…the 2 hr + waiting is unacceptable. However, emergencies DO occur and when that happens, I completely understand. Unfortunately all of the times we have had our long waits, there was no emergency.
The physicians here are TOP rated in their fields, I just hope people don’t start going elsewhere because everything else about this practice is bad.