Venice Family Clinic – Simms/Mann Health and Wellness Center

This review is solely regarding my experience with customer service.
I dislike leaving negative reviews but I was just on hold for over 30 minutes today when all I wanted to do was double-​check what time my appointment is at. That was very frustrating and inconvenient. I could’ve possibly driven there and gotten an answer in person before speaking with someone over the phone. Also, my doctor’s assistant called on my behalf to get referral for me and he told me that his over-​the-​phone experience with this clinic was «difficult» and other words which I’d prefer not to quote. Lastly, one more thing, prior to this incident, I have noticed that one of the receptionists isn’t very kind or friendly over the phone nor in person, I won’t state her name, but she has been rude with me and I got the hint that she didn’t have it in her heart to be of much assistance when I called or checked in. I really hope I can switch insurance providers soon so that I can be seen in a more kind and convenient clinic.

This place sucks! I have never been here less than 3 hours and that is with an appt made MONTHS in advance! God forbid you have a sick kid– they won’t even fit them in — urgent is day later! You will prob get sick coming here waiting ours and hours in waiting. If I could give it ½ star that would be more appropriate.

Located in the old County Board of Health building on Pico this clinic isn’t half bad. They are easy to deal with if you can follow some simple rules, like make an appointment and show up for it on time. If you are one of the homeless who can not tolerate even the simplest of rules I suggest you go to County. I go here for my Diabetes drugs and a checkup every few months. In the months I have gone here I have not had to wait more than 15 minutes past my appointment time. Try that one at Cedars Sini! The place is clean, smells clean and has a large kid friendly waiting area. The almost all female staff are good with kids and the elderly. They ALL speak English and Spanish. The doctors and PAs are nice, positive and easy to joke with. That makes a visit to the clinic a lot easier to deal with.
Is it perfect? No. It has no bigscreen showing sports or a free soda machine. Is it better than every other clinic in the area? You bet your backside it is.

Hmm it has plenty of parking… other then that the wait time is horrible. I dread driving here. Changing providers asap. Also to schedule/​cancel an appointment you have to wait at least and hour to get a hold of someone.

This place is a nightmare! I’ve been waiting for 2 hours and still haven’t seen a doctor… I also had an appointment. I have insurance so I’ll never be back here, but if you don’t, plan on waiting 3 hours or more.

So you walk in and you first need to check in at the desk before they will send you to the appropriate location. I got sent up to the second floor to get a regular physical.
It didn’t take long for them to call me up to the receptionist and then they sent me back to the lobby.
They finally called me and I had to wait maybe 15 minutes to see the doctor.
After seeing the doctor, the doctor told me to wait in the room and I spent nearly ³⁰⁄₄₀ minutes waiting for a nurse to call me to check my vitals.
After getting so frustrated from waiting, I went outside to the hallway and physically tracked down a nurse to ask them whether I would be called soon to do my vitals? It turned out that they HAD already called me but I was in a room that obviously I didn’t hear anyone call me name.
So after having contacted the head nurse they FINALLY began to take my vitals.
After finishing taking my vitals, it turned out that the nurse taking my vitals forgot to test for something else so I had to be poked again and get blood drawn again.
Overall I arrived there at 930 and I didn’t get out until nearly 2pm. I have Medical so unfortunately if you have no choice this is a good location for a check up and seeing a doctor. If you have a better insurance, I would go elsewhere because it takes forever to see someone and the nurses «forget» about you and go to lunch instead.

I’m on MediCAL and so I HAVE to go to this place. It’s pretty bleak but I was in and out in a reasonable amount of time. HOWEVER. It took longer waiting on hold on the phone to schedule the appointment than to actually be seen by a doctor. It might be because I speak English and they don’t have that many people answering the phone. They do not take walk ups and so you have to schedule an appointment. Be prepared to be on the phone for a long time. Overall the place is pretty run down. Feels like an abandoned office building or a hospital inside a prison. very sad and very bleak.
lots of kids running around. One little boy coughed right in my face. Nice.

Worse waiting experience ever! If you don’t have 3 hrs at least to sit and wait for a 5 minutes doctor time, then don’t go there. I thought with more doctors in the clinic the wait would be less. That’s not true here. It was my first time and last time there. I am switching my provider!

God help you from trying to get appt. at least 15 – 20 minutes hold this is ridiculous sorry 5 diff. times avg wait 15 min. so i changed them as primary on medi cal too much wait time !!

Plenty of parking! Easy to find.
Many great services offered to patients and others. I visited an exercise class provided to the community and it was very well run, professional, educational and you can see how much those who attend are benefiting from it.
Great job!

Medi cal required!
I went by and was told to call. Why did the security guard not tell me ‘medi cal only’?
So I called, was on ‘hold’ for 10? minutes.
When I did reach someone I was told, ‘No new patients, unless you have medical’

A great resource for people who don’t have health care insurance. The staff seem professional and competent. They helping me out with my health questions/​concerns.
Check-​in is simple. There is a guard on the first floor and he pointed me to the right place. There can be a wait so bring a book. There is plenty of parking. It is located on the north side of Pico and you cannot miss this very large building.

Musicians and Perf Artist’s clinic (part of the Venice Family Clinic). Frustrating generally, but very kind and helpful people.

Just went there for the first time, the staff was really friendly. It took about an hour and a half for the whole process but you have to expect that for a non profit clinic. Other than the wait, my visit was great

I was basically assaulted back in September at a friend’s birthday party (do I look like I want to wrestle?!) and my left knee was terribly injured. I have no insurance and didn’t know what to do but my neighbor told me about Venice Family Clinics. She had been to this location specifically so I decided to check it out.
It takes 2 weeks to get an appointment for first time patients. Kind of annoying but better than nothing. You’ll answer some questions over the phone.
The place is waaayy larger than I thought it would be. It’s like a Kaiser hospital! They have ample parking in their own lot.
As you check in, you will be asked to give a $ 5 donation if you can. Then you’ll be given a buzzer type device and asked to wait. My wait wasn’t long at all but HINT: bring something to read! There is nothing in the waiting area to read at all and you will be bored.
My doctor immediately understood my need to get an MRI. Since they don’t offer MRIs here (it is pretty much free), they really hooked me up – they got me an appointment with the County Hospital’s Sports Medicine Clinic. That was awesome because it takes way less time to get in with this clinic than it is to go through the County Hospital system. And, they specialize in the type of injury I have.
I would definitely recommend this place to anyone who doesn’t have insurance but needs to be seen by someone. Just remember that it takes those 2 weeks to get your first appointment so emergencies should be handled accordingly.

Simms/​Mann is a part of the Venice Family Clinics: just one part of a wide network of medical services that the VFC proffers up. The VFC network provides medical care and other health services (education, referrals for dental and vision care, mental health, alternative therapies, HIV clinics, etc) for low-​income patients or the insurance-​less (which we all know is a health epidemic in itself in our wonderfully wealthy nation of ours).
Now while you don’t see the glitz and glamour of the large university medical centers, you can still get great care here precisely because most of the volunteer physicians are residents who are being trained at large academic centers (UCLA, Cedars, VA). And because many of the volunteers are residents, you’ve got young, energetic, and empathetic physicians who may be able to come up with creative solutions given somewhat of a constraint in resources; all of course within the context of up-​to-​the-​minute evidence based medicine.
Given that Simms/​Mann and VFC are «free» clinics and having worked at all sorts of county-type/“free” clinics, the resources they have available are amazing. Yes, the waits can be long, but given most don’t pay anything or next to nothing, the options are fairly wide.
This is really an excellent option for people who need decent affordable healthcare.