Riverside Health System

Horrible hospital and staff

If I could rate Riverside less than one star, I would. My 91-year-old mother, who has dementia, had an appointment at 8:00 AM because she broke all her fingers in a fall. We arrived at 8:05 AM, and after waiting on a security line for 5 minutes, we finally were able to sign in at the security desk and received our name tags. We were then sent to the front desk, where they informed me that we were in the wrong building. Although they offered a shuttle, after a 5-minute wait, I opted to retrieve my car and drive over to the right part of the hospital myself. We finally reached the correct building at 8:25 AM. Upon our arrival at 8:25, I was told, "Oh, your appointment was at 8:00, so I need to check if they can still see your mom." This visit was critical as she was there for a cast, following an emergency room visit two days prior where her broken fingers/hand had only been bandaged. I was baffled as to why the cast couldn't be applied at the emergency room, but it seemed like it was an effort by Riverside to extract more money, considering my experiences in NY and South Carolina, where my casts were applied immediately, and then a follow-up appt was scheduled. After another 5-minute wait, the secretary returned and informed me, "I'm sorry, the doctors can’t see her today." She then checked the schedule and said, "We'll need to change providers; they can see her on Monday." That's 5 days away! Despite having 15 people in the waiting room and operating until 4:30 PM, Riverside, which claims to provide compassionate and collaborative care, suddenly saw no problem making my 91yo mother with 4 broken fingers and a broken hand stay in pain for another 5 days. It's clear from their waiting room that Riverside Orthopedics is indifferent to patient wait times and has no issue with overbooking their appointments, but lord help you if you had proof that you were running late for a valid reason.