Ucsd Psychiatric Services

I’ve been a patient here for the past 4 months or so. My experiences have been both good and bad, hence the 2 start rating. The reception staff has always been really professional yet friendly at the same time. At first, I was assigned to a student. While seemingly very knowledgeable, she had a really heavy Asian accent, spoke very softly and did not enunciate well enough such that I constantly had to ask her to repeat herself during the 2+ months she was trying to help me. The last 5 minutes of my 15 session consisted of the student repeating our conversation back to the actual physician, Dr.Khatami. At this point I must explain that there is no talking about your problems at this office. All they are interested in doing is prescribing medicine to hopefully fix the problem. Our conversations were always the same. «Do you think you are benefitting from the drugs that have been prescribed to you at this office?» «Are you experiencing any troubling side effects from the aforementioned medicine (s)?» «Do you feel that it would be beneficial to increase/​decrease those medicines, since your last appointment?» That was all fine, albeit a bit impersonal. The problems began once the student was done with her rotation and my appointments were only with Dr. Khatami. Our appointments turned into him looking at his computer screen while he repeated my full name, age, and amount of my copay. He would then say, «Unless there is anything you need from me I’ll see you again in about a month». Gladly he has since left the UCSD system and Dr. Koh is my new doc. So far, so good.

I went to the offices for an appointment this week and they weren’t open. I assumed I made the mistake of writing down my appointment incorrectly. Two phone calls and 30 minutes on the phone later and the scheduler told me my appointment was on the day they were closed. I was then asked if I would like to reschedule, not an apology, a let me reschedule ASAP, but a nonchalant response. I asked to reschedule and possibly with someone who I could get in quicker to see, was sent to the superintendent to leave a VM. Two days later and I have not heard back. I left another VM today with no response.
The reality is when medication is on the line, this can all create issues. I do not recommend this office, nor their lack of service to anyone.