HRC Fertility - Mission Viejo

This HRC office is a borderline fraudulent business in the way they treat customers. The doctor seems to have zero interest in understanding how poorly the front office handles patients (or theyre being kept in the dark about it). For such an important journey, you should have nothing but trust in the medical professionals you choose for fertility, which I cant say Ive seen from this group.

I needed to find a reproductive endocrinologist in California, and my old practice in another state recommended HRC, presumably based on their history of innovation in reproductive medicine in the 1990’s. I live in Mission Viejo, so I was excited to find that they have an office here, and I booked an intake appointment with Dr. Becht. I was impressed by her experience with fertility preservation, and I watched a number of her online videos and interviews.Before the appointment, the office sent me a portal to fill out medical health history, which I did. The day before the appointment, they sent me a Docusign link to sign the paperwork. The link did not function, but on the morning of the appointment, an administrator called me, and when I told her it didn’t work, she was able to send one that did.In filling out the paperwork, the first from was an optional consent to receive protected health information through non-secure sources like text or e-mail and a waiver of any culpability should that work out unfavorably for the patient. The form stated consent was optional, not necessary to see the doctor, and could be opted out at any time, but there was no actual way not to sign it electronically with the rest of the packet. Obviously, I did not want to sign this (I don’t know why anyone would want to sign this), but since the form stated this was optional, I assumed I would just sort it out at my appointment.When I arrived, I told them the issue and asked for paper forms, which the receptionist stated they don’t do. They re-sent me the link, and I proceeded to have several rounds of back-and-forth discussion with an administrator, who would come out to the waiting room, then leave, call her manager elsewhere, and then come back without a resolution.Though I was on-time for my appointment, after 30 minutes, the administrator noted that I had already missed half my appointment with the doctor, so I would only be allotted the remaining time. She left, talked to her manager, and came back and told me that it was my fault for having missed the majority of my appointment, as the paperwork must be completed before hand. We continued with the back-and-forth to no resolution until 45 minutes after my appointment time, at which point I left without being seen.I find this amazing because the entire time, my mother and I were the only two people in the waiting room, and the doctor was supposedly waiting in just the other room - 15 feet away - but not once did Dr. Becht come out to inquire what the problem might be.If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking for an IVF or reproductive medicine clinic as a new patient for the very first time, so you may not know this yet, but as someone who has worked with this type of specialty before I can assure you this: A reproductive medicine practice is one you’re going to interact with and visit All. The. Time. You’re going to spend tens of thousands of dollars with them (or even hundreds of thousands) and likely have dozens of appointments. You’re going to know everyone who works there by name and deal with them constantly. Setting aside the fact that this is an appointment I cared enough about to take off work and spend $375 out-of-pocket to take, I was actually blown away that this practice would treat potential patients this way in an intake session, because this is the first impression a patient gets of how they’re going to be treated. The fact that they can’t get their own forms right shows that they can’t run their business well. The fact that the doctor allowed me to wait 45 min without coming out to check on me reflects that she doesn’t care much. The fact that the admins blamed their mistake on me reflects that these are difficult and unreasonable people with whom I don’t wish to regularly interact.If you have a half-day of effort and $375 to spare, you could book an intake appointment and find out for yourself if they treat everyone this way or just me. But if I were in your shoes, I would simply find a better doctor and medical practice.