UVA Health Developmental Pediatrics Clinic

"My child was put on the waitlist at age 3, 17 months ago. I was told it could be a few months. Every 3 months I would call and check on the referral, and would get a different answer for how long we would be waiting. Fast forward to now and we get a phone call from our pediatrician that the referral was rejected because they are no longer taking 5 year olds. She just turned 5 last week! Now I’m scrambling to find a child psychologist do evaluate her and I’m getting “we don’t take kids under 6”, or they don’t take our insurance. We’ve been waiting and counting on this. For what? Also my son was referred as well, we checked on the status of that referral and they had TAKEN HIM OFF THE WAITILIST. They said they needed additional information from the pediatrician and had faxed that. My pediatrician swears they never received anything. Now his 6 month wait started over."

"My child was initially referred 6 months ago and when I called to confirm that they had everything they needed they confirmed that they did, that he was on the wait list and that we would hear from them in about 8 months. I called today just to see where he was on the wait list. They told me they never received the info they needed so they took him OFF of the wait-list. Not a call to me or the referring doctor in that six months time frame. I spoke to the supervisor and she said it wasn't their responsibility to inform patients if more information was needed or if they were removed from the wait list. How would one know this information unless they were informed? She also told me that this was my pediatricians fault for not being dutiful enough which I highly doubt. We've been waiting around for 6 months for nothing. Then they told us that if we got everything sent over today that he could be put back on the wait list but it would be a year before he was seen. Basically they don't care about my kid and they probably don't care about yours. If you can, go anywhere but here. They also told me that my son is autistic based on the info they have which is just so weird, inappropriate and wrong. I'm not sure why someone who answers phones thinks they are qualified to provide a medical diagnosis."

"If I could give them 0 stars. We waited for our appointment for 2 years. Every time we would call to check in, we told them where we live, in Pennsylvania. Same thing over and over again. They would ask for insurance and address and we would tell them we live in PA. Finally our appointment time comes. However, it happened during the incident at their campus. They do not bother calling us to tell us about it and that they would be closed. We arrive in Virginia only to find out then that they are closed. We call them next day to schedule a different date. After back and fourth, they tell us they do NOT take patients from Pennsylvania. How do heck did they not know that for these 2 years that we waited for the initial appointment? We spoke to several of their staff and everyone knew we were from PA and not one bothered to tell us that they do not accept patients from PA> Shame on them and especially on Dr. Herrera. I don't know where she got her doctor's license, but I do know when it comes to ethics and professionalism, she is horrible. Shame on UVA. So disappointed."

"Our first few visits were great and we got an accurate diagnosis of ADHD for our 5 year old with Alison Sturgill. We were told at our in person visit in May that we would have a follow up appointment in October after he started kindergarten to see how he was doing. The beginning of September rolled around and I realized we never received a call from the office to schedule this appointment. I called concerned about this and I was told we “slipped through the cracks” and the earliest they could fit us in was January. Our son was struggling a bit with the kindergarten transition and waiting until January wasn’t an option when it was their mistake. I was told the office would talk to Sturgill and get back to me and here we are, over a month later, and I never heard back. We have since gotten an appointment with our local pediatrician. For a specialty doctor’s office, letting clients slip through the cracks, admitting it, and not fixing it is NOT ok. It’s the child that suffers here."

"UVA Children’s Hospital has very deceitful business practices and will not put your child first. After considering multiple speech therapists in the area, we decided to work with Dr. Anita at UVA last fall. Before deciding to schedule sessions, the UVA schedule assured us that she checked with our insurance company based on Dr. Anita’s diagnosis and confirmed we had nearly 90 covered visits left. We moved forward and my daughter met with Dr. Anita B. twice a week from October to December. We were then to take a break and pick sessions back up in January. However, in December...I received a statement from Cigna showing services would not be covered. Then, the passing the buck at UVA began with UVA telling us services were covered and that they would write an appeal to Cigna because this “happens all the time,” according to Developmental pediatrician Beth Davis. That communication was in January 2018 and we were promised a follow up. Needless to say, we never received a follow up and were told that the staff members we spoke to who were working with Davis on the claim were no longer at UVA. I had to file several complaints online over the past few months to even hear back from anyone and I continued receiving bills from UVA the entire time. We were told that managers or team leaders would follow up time and time again, but NOT ONCE. Mind you, our daughter could no longer attend the sessions because of this issue even though we received calls to schedule more visits. Long story short, we receive a call today telling us that the manager said that “UVA has exhausted all resources and we may want to call a plan administration.That they told us services were covered in good faith and the employee who told us that is no longer at UVA.” After many generic responses, I asked for the manager to call and was told she was on vacation, how convenient? Then, suddenly she would be available on Monday. UVA told us that we should not be upset with them but Cigna and sees no fault in its misinformation/scam/lack of care for the three year old who was receiving services. This was our first experience with UVA and I would not recommend a soul go there. You are just a paycheck to them."