Bay Arthritis Institute 2232 West 24th Street, Panama City, FL 32405

"EDIT: Andre Smith, the COO, gave me a call to apologize and explain the changes he plans to make at Bay Arthritis. I really appreciated hearing that this isn’t something they view as acceptable and plan to make sure it doesn’t happen with other patients :) Sharing my experience incase it resonates with someone else waiting for their blood work results from Bay Arthritis. I waited with my newborn for 1 hour and 15 minutes from my appointment time, to be seen. It happens, that’s just part of healthcare now; however, when I was finally seen by the nurse practitioner she was completely unprepared for my appointment. She had no idea I was there for the sole purpose of getting blood work results. Dr. Agha had asked me at my last appointment to redo my blood work after I had my baby to confirm or deny the inconclusive findings for lupus. He set the appointment, so that was what I came for. The nurse practitioner had not even checked to see if I had any blood work pending in the system before she came to see me. She told me it normally would be in my file if there was anything and told me I must not have gotten it done in time. I got my blood work done 1 week before my appointment, which was the amount of time I was told to get it in by Bay Arthritis previously. The diagnostic lab also confirmed it was more than enough time for the doctor to receive it. The nurse practitioner went to check again and said she was downloading the files but that it would take some time and said it was up to me if I wanted to wait. Which means the blood work was able to be retrieved. After being there for so long with my newborn already, I was unable to continue waiting for them to download, just because of her unpreparedness. So I requested a copay refund and asked her to please call me with my results. I don’t feel it should be my job as a patient to let the medical professional know why I am being seen, and to remind them ahead of time to prepare to give me blood work results. Overall I am disappointed by the lack of preparation of this medical professional."

"I'll start by saying, I really like Dr. Agha and the care provided by him and his staff. Overall their care has been very good. The reason I'm giving 2 stars, and I'm willing to change this if this can be rectified moving forward, is getting my prescriptions sent to my pharmacy in a timely manner. My visits are scheduled along with my medication schedule. This is now the second time I've had to call multiple times and I'm not able to leave a message because the mailbox is full and my prescriptions have not been sent to my pharmacy. This is an important part of caring for your patients right? Making sure we have the prescriptions we are prescibed? Whatever is going on with this part of the office, needs to be fixed."

"My mom has been going to Dr Agha for a couple of years now and I have to say how amazing his office is! If I have any concerns his staff is ready to help. Front desk always has nice warming smiles remembering our names. the nurses are friendly and will go beyond and above to help with my mom! He’s the real deal!!! You won’t be disappointed if you make the switch to see Dr Agha definitely wished we started with him but just glad I got her to him whenever I did he definitely changed our life for the better but I wish I could give him and his amazing staff more stars!!"

"I love the doctors there and have always had a positive experience with staff. I’ve gone here since September of 2022. The only thing I find highly frustrating is how hard it is to receive assistance with referrals and getting in contact with staff. Every single time a referral needs to be made from this office it takes forever because they do it incorrectly as it has to go through Tricare with a PCM. I have to constantly call just to get it moving along. It shouldn’t take months to receive assistance. I would give it five stars if they fix their communication."

"First off we have no problem with our Dr Agha and his nurse. Our wait time to see Dr Agha was short and we didn’t wait long for him in the room. He was great at explaining things and prescribed a once a month medication for my wife. She waited until Aug 1 to start, so it was an easy date to remember for the medication and a blood draw and followup was set for 3 months out. That’s where the GOOD ended. We paid 167.42 on credit card that day for deductible that’s understandable, 2 weeks later we get a bill for 107.43 it shows the insurance adjustment but no 167.42 we paid. I called billing didn’t get a return call so called the next day and got someone to return my call. She was very nice and helpful and even searched the transactions for the day of wife’s visit and found nothing. She said I could send a screen shot showing that transaction which I did. Still haven’t received an updated billing which should show a credit. NEXT ISSUE: My wife took her medication on Aug 1, on Aug 2 it started she had numerous side effects, slept in recliner that night, severe abdominal pain, fever, severe headache and neck pain, as well as several other symptoms. She said she’s not doing that again so at 8:30am on Aug 3rd I started calling using prompt 4 (nurse prescriptions). I called until 4:50 PM a total of 16 times and every single time after a prompt to leave detailed message I instantly got “sorry this mailbox is full and not accepting new messages”. The Dr is great but somebody needs to either hire more people to deal with calls or get people in there that WILL take patients calls. I will start calling again tomorrow and try to get at least a message left. Update #2. My wife couldn’t take the oral medication so the NP said we would do Prolivia injection. Said if we didn’t hear on the Medicare pre authorization by 11-13 to call and ask for Katie. I have called every day sometimes twice a day ALWAYS get the answering machine and always left a message with our info and call back number, we have yet to get any response on pre auth or a call back. I’d strongly suggest finding another facility for this treatment."