Bre Andersen
2/5
I was a long-time patient of Brandy, ever since she worked at Wellspring. She has always been incredibly accessible, patient, and, as someone who has had a long-standing debilitating fear of any medical environments and providers, she was the first to make me feel safe, heard, and tell me that I am allowed to advocate for myself and the care I am comfortable with. I have always spoken highly of Brandy and referred several friends to Harbor Health over the years. I've always had a great experience with the front office staff, and they're just as lovely as Brandy.
That's why, unfortunately, it pains me to say that I am a former patient. My most recent Telehealth appointment was a routine check-in about medications and chronic pain I had mentioned a couple of months ago. Brandy had been temporarily out of the office, but I had made this appointment a month prior with that knowledge. In the meantime, the pain I had been experiencing started affecting my day-to-day life, and since I knew I wouldn't be able to be seen in-person for a bit, I decided to see another practitioner in town that I had heard great things about who was able to see me within a few days. I was able to get the ball rolling on some diagnoses for what has been affecting me, but I made it clear I had a regular primary care provider with Brandy and was happy with her.
This was brought up in my Telehealth appointment with Brandy, of course, to fill her in on what I had been doing while I waited for our follow-up. But unlike the consistent care I was used to, she was uncharacteristically passive-aggressive and distant. At first, I just chalked it up to her recovering from her time out of the office for medical reasons. But then she quickly questioned if I was transferring care to the other practitioner I saw, saying she "doesn't typically work with other providers locally" and that it was uncommon for people to have two primary care providers because it makes things super complicated when transferring records and who is in charge of what. I was confused, as I had very clearly stated that I was only seeing this other person for the chronic pain while she was out, not primary care.
She mentioned that I could have reached out to her, although I was under the impression she would be out for a while. She corrected me and said she had only been out for at most a week, and had been seeing patients virtually for a couple weeks, but I explained that I was told the soonest time to meet was virtually a month after I called (which was fine, as I understood that life happens, even for our doctors). She then said her front office had emailed me to set up an appointment about a month prior and asked if anything changed during that time, to which I confirmed that I was incredibly busy, emailed back, and rescheduled as soon as I could. Brandy also suggested I could have seen the other practitioner in the clinic, Amber, but the multiple friends who I had referred who had experiences with Amber had told me that while she was very pleasant and nice for the most part, she had also made them uncomfortable and pressured into certain tests and procedures, so I did not want to see Amber (though I didn't mention it during my appointment as I didn't want to be rude).
The tone came off a little unprofessional, almost as if she was upset that I went to see another provider; she made me feel as though I had done something very wrong by just getting care somewhere that wasn't Harbor Health. She was never outright mean, but needless to say, I was incredibly disappointed. I decided shortly after our appointment to transfer care elsewhere by letting Brandy know via email. She responded quickly, with a message of, " Thank you. Best of luck to you." Perhaps I read too much into it, but I don't exactly feel great being wished luck with my health while dealing with chronic pain as I seek care elsewhere...
If you're looking for consistent primary care and women's health, I have nothing but great things to say, but I regretfully felt I had to move on due to this experience.
