CHA Broadway Health Center

A lot of what I will say echoes other reviews, but I wanted to give a sense of how long these problems have been going on.
I love my pedi, Dr. Kasper. She’s amazing and even if we moved we’d still come see her. She let’s you email her to see if you then need to go ahead and make an appointment. My husband and I have Dr. Brightman, who is also excellent.
However. The phone service is abysmal. The desk service is a lot better, but you have to go through the phone to get that far, so it doesn’t make up for it. I will put off calling things in until it becomes serious simply because I hate the phone service so much.
This is a system wide CHA problem, but it is the most glaring at Broadway because of the size and purpose of the clinic.
The system is this: you call the number which sends you to a message which tells you basically if it’s an emergency call 911 if not, then lists several options that all lead you to being on hold. Indefinitely. When you do get to a person, they ask a bunch of questions but refuse to let you just leave a vm for your doctor or their nurse assistant. If you miss a call back you start from scratch. Also, the information you gave the first person is in no way given to the person doing the call back, so that all has to be done again.
Making an appointment can be a problem because at one point they only made appointments for the next 2 weeks and then without any word dropped that and made appointments for whenever, which can be months ahead of time. Again this is a CHA problem.
I’ve been coming here since my daughter’s birth in 2005 and they have not fixed any of this.

I moved to Somerville 3 years ago and was looking for Doctors for my family, 12 yr old boy, 10yr old girl, myself and my husband. As I’m sure any mother knows it’s a great thing to be able to go to one place for all. My kids go to Somerville pediatrics and I go to Malden family health. I can honestly say for myself, after 47 years this is the first time I feel as though my Doctor (Dr. Honor Macnoughton) really cares for me and my health. My kids doctors at Somerville pediatrics (Dr. Kasper and Dr. Osler) are also wonderful, caring, and knowledgeable. I have never waited longer than 10 minutes for myself and not even 5 minutes for my kids. The front end staff is also incredible. I would highly recommend CHA to anyone

I’m going to echo a lot of what Alexandra J. said below (during a previous visit, I requested my thyroid to be checked and the only test they’d do is TSH). I picked this practice after moving to the area without knowing much about it. Being young and pretty healthy, I haven’t needed to see a doc that often. That being said, every experience I’ve had has been on the spectrum of meh to downright awful. If at all you want your healthcare to be collaborative or holistic, do not come here. God forbid you’re educated, do some research, and have an opinion. Do not try to be your own advocate, you will not be heard (which is really funny because the screen in the waiting room claims they promise to listen more and talk less).
I honestly have nothing against the physician I was seeing as a person because she’s super sweet and remembers things like what I do for work, but, well, it definitely feels like a clinic. My most recent visit sort of sealed the deal on me looking for a new PCP. I scheduled a physical, which I had put off for awhile, and was mildly amused by the online appointment confirmation stating the length of a physical exam is a mere 20 minutes (and mind you, if you’re female, this includes a pelvic exam as well). I had a ton of things I wanted to discuss which left me talking while my doc typed, examined, and occasionally responded.
Oh wait, let me back up a minute. A very nice and sweet medical assistant first took my blood pressure with some fancy newfangled cuff machine. She warned it would be tight, but it literally cut off my circulation for so long that my hand turned blue. I happened to see that the display gave my BP as 168/​something, which, if you know anything about blood pressure, is pretty freaking high. Like, see a doctor high. I have absolutely no history of high BP; if anything, it’s usually on the low side. Did she bother to take it again or even pause in disbelief? No. I mentioned it to the doc who took it again manually and of course, it came back a nice normal value.
Anyway, the whole exam felt rushed. Concerns about weight were raised based on BMI alone and I was given no plan of action or goals to meet for weight loss beyond «diet and exercise.» I was given a prescription for a medication after the briefest of discussions which I later researched and decided immediately that I would not be taking it.
I also visited the CHA Women’s Health Center at Somerville Hospital that I really liked initially but later had some similar negative experiences. Discussion of concerns, issues, etc do not happen. I got shot down so fast I didn’t even know what happened. I received an abnormal test result at one point (that I had to call for) from a nurse and when I asked what it meant, I got an «oh I don’t know, you’ll have to ask the doctor.» Sigh.
They have a really diverse clientele, so there’s usually some pretty good people watching in the waiting room. One star for that.

My daughter went to Broadway health center from infancy and saw Dr. Jill Kasper who is wonderful. Dr. Kasper is a knowledgeable, caring, and very personable pediatrician. In my daughter’s time there a number of health issues came up and each time I felt that Dr. Kasper and her associates were caring, thorough, cautious, and extremely helpful. The nursing staff were also wonderful with my daughter, who was often afraid and upset at Dr. visits. I found this to be a great place for pediatrics.

Staff is kind, facility is clean, and it’s near my house, so I thought it would be convenient for me to establish care here. All of that was true, but the physician that I saw was just about the biggest waste of an hour ever. First of all, I felt like I was in a clinic. Instead of having a discussion with me, I was interrogated about my sexual history, family history of disease, etc. The physician was blunt and utterly humorless. If you have a thyroid problem, don’t go here because they will ONLY test your TSH which is basically useless if you know anything about thyroid testing and God forbid anyone actually believe that you’ve given an accurate depiction of your sexual history at this place. At one point, she tilted her head and looked at me (I’m a Ph.D. Candidate, btw) and asked, «Do you understand what I am asking you?» She also told me to stop talking because she wasn’t done asking me questions yet! She suggested a particularly awful kind of birth control that NONE of the last three gynecologists I’ve seen (including a professor at Hershey Medical School) would give to any living creature. I had this particular kind ONCE and had a terrible reaction to it and when I said, «No.» and told her why, she then suggested another type with the SAME hormone. Why would you do that? Did you get your M.D. from a Cracker Jack Box? She kept hammering on about STD’s and this stupid birth control that I didn’t want. After all was said and done, she left the room and let me log-​on to my «Patient Portal» or whatever it was and then I had to ask someone if I could then leave. It was unclear if someone was going to come get me or if I was supposed to sit in the exam room for the rest of eternity. Everything was according to a script, so I can only assume that it’s the way things are done there and it’s more of a clinic setting than it is a regular practice.
I left with eight pages (yes EIGHT) of lab tests that made me feel like my voice as a patient was never heard and completely violated. Went home and changed PCP’s to one recommended to me by a friend. If you have to go to a clinic-​type setting, I’d recommend going to Planned Parenthood or the like and not this place. I’m sure there are lovely physicians there, but it was not a positive experience for me and I left the practice. New PCP actually seems like she might follow the Hippocratic Oath more closely.

Our child sees Dr. DeAngelis and we only have good things to say about him. Occasionally we have had to book the other doctors in Dr. DeAngelis’s absence but all of them are equally as professional and competent. The clinic itself caters to a majority of minority/​immigrant patients because of its location but it’s super convenient for us and they get people in and out the door fairly quick. I have never had to wait for more than 5 minutes for the nurse to call us in which is really important when you have a sick baby. My son has bedtime nightmares of the place but we have no complaints of the quality medical care offered by their pediatricians. Definitely 4 stars!

This place is strictly a business, I did not feel as if anyone was actually concerned about my health and well being.
I had an appointment for a relatively serious issue scheduled for months. My appointment was at 3, I arrived at 2:50. At 3:20 I was brought into a room to have my blood pressure taken as well as my weight. I was told the nurse was going to check to see if my room was available. After another half hour of waiting, at 3:50 I was finally brought into my procedure room and asked to undress. After waiting another 15 minutes the doctor came in and told me they would not be doing the procedure because she had not read my chart until just then. She apologized for wasting my time, advised me to make an appointment elsewhere and left.
This is pathetic. After over an hour of waiting I left with nothing. Not only that but they made me re schedule for 3 months from now, which completely disregards the severity of my complications. I am a working person who’s time is valuable and I can’t afford to take time off for it to be wasted.
I also had similar experience with their partner hospital in Somerville.

Had the receptionist or whoever was manning the appointments desk shout at me because I had the temerity to suggest to her that it was not really ok for them to be utterly incapable of telling me how much I’d have to pay out of pocket for a visit for what I suspect is the flu. She told me that I’d have to pay a 100 USD deposit and sign a waiver saying I’d pay for any and all expenses, but couldn’t even give me a ballpark estimate. After some mild prodding along the lines of «Could you tell me if it would be less than 500? 1000?», she started getting really excited and started shouting about how she didn’t know, would have no idea of how to get the information, and so on and so forth. Having been a receptionist myself, I have no idea what kind of bad day she could be having at 9:00am when the office opens, but I certainly didn’t appreciate being yelled at just because I didn’t exactly want a surprise bill of about 1000 (happened to a friend) for a doctors visit.
Last time I went in at the end of 2011, they also could not tell me how much my bloodwork would cost. Got bumped from person to person in the building and no one, not even the billing dept, had a list in front of them that would tell them how much my bloodwork would cost out of pocket.
In both cases, I needed to know because they couldn’t find my healthcare provider and plan and so they said I’d be billed directly because they couldn’t find my plan.
I’ve not been to see the doctor in about two years because every single time I feel sick enough to try and see a doctor, they’ve put a healthy fear of of their ridiculous hoops into my system and I end up giving up.

The doctors here are wonderful. We love our son’s pediatrician. She is wonderful, smart, and my son adores her.
However, the staff could use some help. We arrived one morning last summer just as soon as the office opened, as our son was having an asthma attack and needed a simple Combivent treatment. He was panicked, screaming and alternately wheezing, rolling on the floor. AND THE RECEPTIONIST WOULD NOT LET THE DOCTOR SEE HIM UNTIL SOMEONE SHOWED UP WHO KNEW HOW TO CHECK US IN PROPERLY. I seriously wanted to kill these people. A woman eventually strolled in 20 minutes after the office was supposed to open, carrying a tray of coffee, and languidly settled herself behind the computer before deciding to check us in. My kid was having trouble breathing, can’t f*cking check-​in wait!!!
Ok, I feel better now with this rant off my chest. Maybe staff has improved since last summer. At least I dearly hope so.