National Spine & Pain Centers - Fair Oaks

"The staff at the Fair Oaks office of National Spine & Pain are absolutelty the best! I know they always have my health and well being their top priority. Dr P is the absolute bomb, you can tell she loves what she does, more importantly, she truly cares about her patients. Everyone is so nice and easy to deal with I actually enjoy going in for my visits, I'm a frequent flyer there. Shout out to Catherine at the front desk for always being so kind and her big bright smile!!!!!!!!"

"I cannot express my heart felt thanks enough to Dr. Protopappas and Christopher Van Zoern NP. They have kept me comfortable and able to work for a couple of years now. Today, I had a pretty severe back emergency, which hasn’t happened in about 4 years. I called 1st thing in the am and had an appt for 2. As I was leaving work , they called me back and told me to just get there asap. I live about 70 miles away but I made it before 1. They treated me for my issue and I was so grateful. I may even be out of pain and able to return to work tomorrow. Truthfully don’t know how I survived without them before. The whole staff is just great there and are always willing to help and go the extra mile. I just can’t thank them enough. I’ve been a chairside assistant for 42 years now, and because of them I’ll make it to 45. Maybe longer. Again, many thanks."

"I have been a patient of Dr. Protopapas for 16 years, but getting to see the doctor these days is nearly impossible. As a result , my two most recent visits (24 October 2023 and 14 January 2021) have been with two different NPs. My issue with National Spine and Pain/Fair Oaks is their absolutely abysmal ability to communicate and to follow up. This verges on professional incompetence. Since my office visit I have left three phone messages and two messages on the patient portal to discuss a change in my condition and their prescription of a medication which, it turns out, has a major interaction with a medicine that I had taken that morning. I was not warned about the major drug interaction and had to read about it online. I received no/no follow up from a competent nurse or doctor to address any of my concerns. A hapless receptionist passed along the message Thursday evening that the office was closed and that I should basically tough it out until the next morning when I could expect an answer…I am still waiting for a response, which will certainly not happen now until Monday as it’s the weekend and they are closed. I ended up calling their after hours/weekend medical line, and after two attempts and 3 hours, I finally spoke with a nurse who forwarded only half the prescription to my pharmacy. This is just incompetence. More seriously, this lack of response—especially dealing with a drug interaction question—is an appalling example of medical nonfeasance. Thank Heavens that the pharmacist at CVS is knowledgeable and took the time to address my concerns. While the doctors and nurses at National Spine and Pain/Fair Oaks are adequate in the clinic itself, not following up with patients means that they are only good at half their job. Being half good at anything, is a failure. Patient care does not end once the patient leaves the office. There are other pain treatment centers in northern Virginia; I would highly recommend prospective patients look elsewhere."

"Would highly recommend the Fair Oaks office! The nurse practitioners are patient and take the time to explain, and answer all of your questions. I can’t say enough about Dr. Protopapas - I am very confident in her abilities. She explained everything in Laymans terms, walks you through the procedure, and makes you feel very safe. I’ve moved and purposely travel back to the office just to see these doctors."

"It is unfortunate that a good doctor works in this office with such poor office management, billing, and other team members. It reflects so badly on her and the reason good staff and many patients have left. Billing is incompetent, refuse to return calls when errors were made, and threaten collections over their billing mistakes without reaching out to patients. Office management is impossible to get to and will ignore any questions, comments, or concerns you make to her while she has conversations in the background. I dealt with it for over four years to continue to see Dr. P, but it isn’t worth the headache when the rest of the office isn’t willing to treat patients as well as she does."