Poor customer service is making the doctors lose customers.

I ended a call at 8:44am 4 November 2024 (if my call needs to be tracked back)

What was already an appointment which my partner was nervous about- turned into one of the worst experiences we have had with a doctor's practice.

My partner has add and has been suffering with his symptoms for a really long time and he decided he wanted to get help. We looked online for suggestions and everyone recommended that he sees Dr. Wickens at Medicross, Miramar.

1st issue - major flaw in the online booking process and website layout, which caused our whole appointment to be incorrect- We booked an appointment online for an adhd assessment on Friday the 1st November 2024. We made the booking online- and no where did it stipulate that we had to make 2x bookings for an adhd assessment. We also were not notified about this before we go to the practice.

We arrived and they told us that the adhd assessment is 30 minutes and not 15 minutes and that we needed to book 2x appointments. The lady at the reception told us that the doctor will tell us to come back another time. My partner lives in Korsten, and we have to make arrangements with work and transport to get to this practice in Miramar.

I asked the receptionist if we could move the appointment to Monday, but she called the doctor and she told me that we can still see the doctor for 15 minutes that day because we were already there.

Dr. Wickens is a great doctor and we have absolutely no complaints with him whatsoever. Even though we were only there for half of the proper appointment time needed.

He prescribed trial medication for my partner to try and said we can come back on Monday if he wants to for the rest of the 15 minutes and he will not charge us for the follow up consultation.

We paid for the full amount of r600(which is the cost for the full 30 minutes of the adhd assessment)

I called this morning to request to move the follow up consultation- as this weekend my partner and i discussed that it would be better to go back with feedback from the trial medication.

**Issue number 2(which is the biggest issue) This morning when I called , the 2 ladies that I spoke to were incredibly rude. The first lady I spoke to answered my call already annoyed, but i remained polite and I did not raise my voice once or be rude to them.

I asked if it's possible for us to move the follow up consultation to next month- and I was told that we would be charged the full amount for the next consultation and she also said that she doesn't even know why the doctor told us this appointment would be free.

I don't understand why we would be charged when we paid the full amount when we were only there for 15minutes and not the full 30mins and were told that the follow up consultation today would be free.

Thr first lady transferred my call without telling me why and then when i asked the next lady why we would be charged (in a polite and calm way- I'm not a karen) - I got shouted at and spoken to extremely rudely- especially by this second lady. She told me that she doesn't know what I don't understand and was being really rude. She also told me that I should have told the doctor on friday- but our time was so short and rushed and the doctor prescribed the medication in the last minute and we had to quickly leave as he was busy. We did not have time for further discussion or even get to think about everything that just happened. She then told me that she's just going to tell the doctor to call my partner. He got one missed call while he was working yesterday and we haven't heard anything more. So we still don't have confirmation on the follow up appointment.

You didn't need to shout at me... really not cool and extremely unprofessional.

Here are the facts: 1. The WEBSITE caused us to have an error with our appointment. Nobody called us before hand to notify us to change the appointment or book 2x appointments.

2. We paid the FULL amount for 2x appointment slots and only got 1x appointment slot.

3. When I asked to move our second appointment slot (which is free because we paid the full amount already) the customer service I received was absolutely terrible.

My partner still needs to go back and wants to see Dr. Wickens and we still need to change the appointment date. I would never recommend this practice and it is all due to poor customer service.