Dr. Karina La'O Vivar

Very disappointed in patient care. I went to see Dr. Vivar due to acne flare-ups after they had be gone for a while. It seemed as if she didn't bother to read my chart. Recommended medications that I had already been on (which obviously did not work) and then proceeded to recommend that I go back on another medication, but she had told me a month ago to go back on it again. Barely gave me advice on what to do and stated "what do you want to do" as if I was the doctor in the situation. To make matters even better, she sent my prescription to another state, after informing her I was home for another month, and did not confirm that pharmacy as correct. I walked out of that appointment with the same amount of knowledge, if not less, than I had walked in with. Do not schedule with her.

Scheduling with Luries Dermatology is an absolute nightmare. 4+ months out at best. We had our first appointment with this provider in February for our 3 month old who had eczema. We’re told to come back within 2 months. And because this is Luries they call you back to tell you when they can see you. No one called. I finally called about 2 month mark in April - And they told me that their next availability appointment was 3 months, until July!!! We finally get in due to a cancellation in late April. Running late, Attempted to call Luries to tell them we were late but no one answered so we’re out in queue to be called back. But no flexibility. Turned us away, basically with their pretentious middle fingers in the air. Our baby had an issue that day, your telling me that not even a nurse could scramble 10 mins to check our 5 month old to make sure it was nothing serious. We will be moving providers immediately.

I am giving her 1 star because she showed up for the visit but she was super late, rushed us through the visit, and didn't have the experience to help with my son. She told us to come to see her in three months and she would decide what to do about his issue. We had already waited for months to get in with her. My son left in tears and when I called to talk to her more she was defensive and angry. My son's Ped reached out to her and she lying to my son's ped about the visit. DO NOT SEE HER!!!

We were scheduled for an appointment with Dr Vivar with our 5 1/2 week old baby. We arrived 10 minutes late. We were at the check in desk by 1:40pm but by time they checked us in they claimed we were 15 minutes late. After waiting for another 10 minutes in the waiting room a nurse informed us that because we were late, the doctor would not be able to see us until another hour and a half because she first had to "see the patients who had arrived on time." We responded that given the COVID crisis, it was ridiculous to expose a 5 and 1/2 week infant to a long wait in a doctors office and expressed our intent to leave. They then called a manager, who said that if patients are 15 minutes late then it’s to the Dr discretion if she wants to see them or not, and the Dr opted out not to see us but to see other patients who were “on-time”. What a terribly poor approach to patients!!! I’m actually glad that this Dr will no longer be seeing my child, I just can’t imagine what type of pediatrician asks parents to wait for an hour during the Covid crisis with a young infant in a waiting/high traffic area with sick kids all around? On top of that, we were a new patient to this practice so technically they were supposed to schedule a new patient visit for us which is usually scheduled and billed for 60 minutes, but even if only 30 minutes had been scheduled, what patients was the doctor already seeing or “opted to see”? The patient scheduled before us presumably was already done and the patient scheduled after presumably had not yet arrived. So I’m pretty sure we were double booked! It’s such a hypocracy approach!! We routinely wait for Lurie's -- just the other day we spent 30 minutes in the waiting room after arriving on time for an ultrasound scan for our infant. To get an appointment with a specialist in dermatology I have waited over an hour on hold on the phone. We wait on them for hours, but when we're 10 minutes late, we can't be accommodated? This is just ridiculous!