Forward

"Easily the most accomodating and productive experience I've had with general medicine since I was a child. It makes me hopeful for the future of primary care and my future experiences with Forward Health. My initial visit and the follow up information provided were thorough and substantive. My blood work was done properly, so I didn't leave with a throbbing or limp arm - sadly, this rare for me. The staff went out of their way to ensure my first experience of them was a good one and that my 1 hr drive to DC wasn't in vain. I'm looking forward to my next visit after my genetic testing is completed. Dr Hodes and the other staff were great. I recommend everyone at least trying out Forward Health. It is worth the investment to have a decent baseline understanding for where your personal health is and what your risk factors are long-term. Unfortunate Update: I removed one star, because though my initial visit was great, things got weird after that. They tried to pull my medical records from a random place in Kansas, despite me telling them the correct place was in Baltimore, forcing me to have to go down the rabbit hole of trying to retrieve them myself. After a little back and forth, I decided $150/month was too much to pay to continue this service just for one good annual exam/year. Hopefully, there are some improvements to fix the customer experience with billing & records."

"I was initially so excited for Forward as a way to proactively manage my healthcare. The office and doctors are great, however, once you get past the need for routine care, Forward falls flat on its face. I have an ankle injury that initially required am Xray prior to an MRI. Once that was complete and showed nothing, the MRI was next. It has been since Oct 16th (granted with a short gap as my insurance transitioned) and they have yet to work with the insurance company to get the "authorization" needed. Its sad because I wanted to like and use this service but they are incapable of managing the details of my healthcare. Im going back to One Medical."

"The wait times for an appointment are totally out of control at this point and the service is abysmal. Today I wrote to the chat to tell them I was sick with a fever and stomach pains all weekend and needed to come in and they told me the next available appointment was the 21st — aka TEN DAYS from now. When I said to just cancel my membership because that was a ridiculous wait for a concierge medical service, they reminded me I would lose access to perks like “unlimited lipid panels”. I don’t need unlimited lipid panels — I need to see a doctor when I am sick, which they cannot do. The technology is all smoke and mirrors — there is a giant screen in the room when you meet with the doctor and a nurse taking notes remotely, but they always mess the notes up and I had to correct them afterwards. They cannot do things as basic as send a referral — once they were supposed to send a referral to a specific radiologist for me and sent it to THREE different wrong ones first. The people who answer in the app are not based in the DC office, do not have medical training, and do not seem to have any idea what is going on. The app is glitchy and constantly sends you notifications that aren’t applicable to you. I feel ridiculous for paying so much per month for service that is so far below what I would have gotten at a regular doctors office. My advice is to pay for a real concierge practice or don’t bother — this isn’t a good in-between. Also the reason there are such long wait times is that they can’t keep any doctors there for more than a month or two except Adam Hodes, although they try to hide that there is only one physician seeing patients at that practice."

"Fancy office with mostly useless technology. Doctors are nothing special but competent. The problem with this place is their “care team” that is responsible for coordinating appointments and refilling Rx. Always a hassle dealing with them. Recently it took them 5 days to order a refill of insulin and they still didn’t get it right. $150 a month isn’t worth it for the lack of convenience and poor service. With get a real concierge doctor or stick with your regular primary care."

"It is the doctors office of the future. For non-urgent appointments, it would take 3+ weeks to schedule with my former PCP, 3 months for a well-woman exam. In a matter of 5 weeks, I've had my baseline bloodwork, saw a nutritionist, dermatologist and gastroenterologist (for a colonoscopy), and had an abdominal CTScan. I had questions about my bloodwork results and messaged my care team which promptly replied. THIS is how medicine is supposed to be done...efficient. While Forward is a PCP, you're paying for expedited PCP service. This is an opportunity cost of not having to wait."