Brandon S. Lu, MD

I had such an awful experience with the billing, that I will NEVER go back. My bills were not processed correctly, and they sent my bill to a collection agency. The billing person Ms. Young, refused to help me; even though, it was their fault that the bill wasn’t processed correctly. She was unkind and unprofessional on the phone; even though, I needed her help. Furthermore, the doctor didn’t help me at all, so I had to go to another doctor and pay once again. A patient doesn’t deserve to be treated so unkindly. They will not process your bill correctly, and will charge extra for services that are unnecessary and useless.

My experience with this guy was so bad I joined Unilocal to make this review.
I am reviewing Dr. Lu from the perspective on someone who has a circadian sleep disorder. Dr. Lu is a pulmonary doctor but he is board certified in sleep medicine.
My experience with Dr. Lu made me deeply uncomfortable. He trivialized my concerns, told me my problems were caused by a lack of motivation, was distrustful of my ability to record my sleep, and openly said he does not prescribe medication for this condition because of strange personal beliefs about the nature of sleep problems, despite the safety and efficacy of many drugs on the market.
When I talked to Dr. Lu it was not a discussion between two equals; it was like speaking to someone innately distrustful of those with sleep problems. To give some examples:
1. I handed Dr. Lu ~150 days of data from 5 separate sleep logs. The first thing he said was «I don’t care about that. I want to hear it from you.»
That attitude is a red flag. Any half-​serious sleep doctor is going to ask you to record about 15 – 30 days of consecutive sleep data before having a serious discussion. The reason being that the quality of personal recollection is a lot weaker than that of quantitative data.
In his defense, he did flip through several pages, but I’m throwing this in here given the other things he did.
2. Dr. Lu openly said he does not prescribe any medications for sleep conditions. (I added in the last part– I don’t know if he prescribes medication for other things.) We had a short discussion about this and it seemed that his personal beliefs influenced him a lot on this issue. In a nutshell, he believes that it’s unhealthy to use drugs that influence wakefulness, even if prescribed, because of side effects, psychological dependence, and taking medication is a slippery slope (as in, you’ll be tempted to take the medication on a regular basis). His beliefs seemed to be «you don’t need medication because the body is capable of healing itself.»
That is a seriously unprofessional way of treating a patient. Medicine is about quality of life, and it’s up to me to determine whether or not the side effects are worth tolerating, not him. I have no history of drug use or addiction so it is inappropriate to suggest psychological dependence as a problem. Furthermore, sleep disorders like the one I have are chronic and have a strong genetic component. This guy treated me like I was a relatively normal person with occasional insomnia looking for a lifetime prescription of hypnotics and stimulants.
3. Dr. Lu suggested the mild intervention of artificial light in the morning melatonin at night. When I asked him what I could do to show him that my problems were more severe than what his suggestion would correct, he said, «You can’t do anything to convince me. It will work. It has to work.» He then went on to say that if I recorded my sleep patterns doing what he suggested and it wasn’t «normal», he couldn’t trust that I recorded the data accurately, or trust that I was being honest when recording the data.
Wow. Just wow. This is a doctor telling me that *his* treatment will cure me of my chronic condition because… because! Then he quickly severs any doctor-​patient relationship by telling me that he just can’t trust my competence or my intentions. How am I supposed to have a level-​headed conversation with a doctor who openly states that nothing can change his mind and that he can’t trust me?
4. He trivialized my concerns. He appropriately labeled my problem as a circadian one (after all, my problem was inconsistent timing of sleeping and wakefulness for years), but then he goes on to say that my schedule is so strange because I’m somewhat of a «free spirit.» He strongly implied that the issue was that I wasn’t trying hard enough to get on a normal sleep schedule. This really offended me. I was a double stem major graduating with honors back in college, I work 70 – 80 hours per week, and was up for 21 hours at the time of our visit. I also recorded my sleep patterns for ~300 days (150 of which I gave him), and he essentially tells me that my problem is really a motivation problem. Thanks, buddy.
I’ve thought a lot about this review before writing it. I decided to write it because a doctor should never make someone feel that uncomfortable and should never refuse to *consider* prescribing medication with no serious side effects out of weird personal beliefs. I regret ever meeting Dr. Lu because he made me feel trivialized and ignored.