MGH Physical Therapy

A family member attended OT for a hand related injury from an MVA, with Suzanne and Carol, for several months. I accompanied her, and made these observations. Most of the early sessions went well. I did notice that Carol tending to have difficulty understanding things that the patient was explaining to her. She seemed to have her own ideas RE origin of her disability and symptoms, despite the patient clearly communicating the onset and event that triggered her issues, as well as her physician reports being in the system. For example, on our last session with her, she remarked to my family member that "we don't treat people like yourself for arthritis for this many months." That was an irrelevant, ignorant comment, considering she isn't coming here for arthritis...She is here following a serious MVA, and has shown improvement over the months. As time went on, Carol seemed irritable and short with my family member during the visits. We had scheduled appts through the end of December, which both providers had agreed to that plan. However, we had to cancel two appts due to a family issue we had to deal with, and neither provider was in the practice during the final week of December...so three visits needed to be scheduled. Therefore, we scheduled these visits in January, in order to make up the visits that we were unable to have. Carol was quite rude when she, and then I, explained this to her, and didn't seem to absorb the reasons why the plan needed to be adhered to as they'd agreed upon. My family member had been making significant progress that I witnessed, after a fairly significant plateau, and cutting off access to service without the final few visits, at this key point, would be detrimental to her. I told her we would meet with Suzanne the following week, and we would discuss this further, but that the program agreed upon needed to be adhered to. We met with Suzanne on 1/12/22. she was more polite, but refused to continue to see my family member. She said the visits couldn't be "made up" and that she thought she had reached her goals. I told her that I disagreed - I see another perspective that she does not as a provider, although she and Carol are aware that her progress has increased significantly in recent visits. This is not good patient care, nor is it reflective of the patient-centered, "team approach" that MGH rehab services claims to honor. She is aware that the home program is not being performed as effectively as it could be, and in addition to continuing skills reinforcement and evaluations Carol had performed them, but I mentioned that I would like her opinion as well, I think the final two visits would have been crucial, re insuring that she is following the program, and working out any issues that exist. Instead, she's being cut off from services today without any regard for her feelings on the matter, the appts are being cancelled, and MGH is refusing to provide any further support. I am immediately filing a complaint with both the department head and Patient Advocacy, but also wanted to alert readers here as to what went on. Would not recommend using the Occupational Therapy service at Mass General, if a cooperative team approach, where your feelings and rehabilitative needs are given top priority, is what you desire. I must add that Ashley in Neuro PT has been very helpful, and receptionist Matt has been an excellent help with scheduling appts. They are true representations of what MGH providers and staff should be about. No negative attitudes, and they keep their commitment to quality patient care at all times. Suzanne and Carol clearly have other agendas that extend beyond top quality patient care, and that's truly unfortunate to see and experience.

Very good and skilled neurological occupational therapists