Tara Tarantino, DO: Primary Care & Osteopathic Medicine

Dr Tarantino is the best doctor I've ever had the privilege of working with. It's been life changing being her patient. She isn't one of those doctors that prescribes you pills and sends you on the way. She asks questions, digs deep into your diet and lifestyle to understand the root of problems and gives you suggestions to fix. She has helped me change my diet to improve my health and tips to adjust my workouts to reduce my knee pain, and it's helped tremendously.

Her attention to detail and patient care is second to none. When my cholesterol and glucose test results were high, she not only follows up wirh detailed instruction on my chart and what could be causing it, but scheduled retesting 3 months out to monitor. She is the first doctor that informed me that my sugar/carb intake are affecting my high cholesterol level. She reminds me to drink more water and even looked at my shoes and told me my worn out soles are contributing to my back pain.

She booked several referrals for me after our first meeting, one of which that led me from being told I need a shoulder replacement years ago to a small surgery that is going to fix my shoulder and improve my QOL. I would have never retested my shoulder if she didn't suggest it.

Her OMT sessions have given me more neck range of motion and reducing my back pain before a big jiujitsu tournament. They really work and I feel so much better after them.

Im truly impressed by her care. She is a one of kind doctor and I feel very fortunate to be her patient . Highly, highly recommended

Dr. Tarantino is hands down the best doctor I've ever had. She listens to my concerns and explains all of my options for care. She is friendly, knowledgeable, and down to earth. She is also incredibly uplifting and I look forward to our appointments, unlike any other doctor I've seen.

Dr. Tarantino is one of the best doctors I have ever ever had. She is patient, kind, puts patients firsts, will give you the best treatment and advice possible, and responds right away. Both my husband and I see her and she is one of the best doctors we have had.

Dr Tarantino is great—attentive, caring, thorough, and even has a good sense of humor! I highly recommend her.

I had an appointment with Dr. Taratino last week for a physical. She was thorough with rhe exam, took the time to listen to my concerns, addressing both physical and social issues. She truly is a holistic practitioner. I am scheduled to see her soon for an osteopathic manipulation for neck problems; I am looking forward to it!

I miss Dr. Tarantino! She’s the one who gave me hope and helped me recover from pregnancy-related pelvic issues with her skills in osteopathic manipulative treatment. She listens and gives expert advise! I was bummed when we had to change insurance and providers. She’s definitely a gem in the medical field!

I’ve been extremely happy with Dr. Tarantino’s care at every appointment I’ve had with her. She is an exceptional communicator both listening attentively and explaining things clearly. She clearly cares about you as an individual and I’m so glad to have her as a part of our family support team.

My recent visit with Dr. Tarantino went better then I could have expected. I prefer to start with alternative approaches to healing and she was extremely respectful of my preferences. She actually listened when I talked and I feel like I got to ask every question I had saved up for the visit. I would highly recommend her to everyone I know.

I recently saw Dr. Schleifer at urgent care for abdominal pain. After a thorough exam she concluded I need to go get a CT scan and or a ultra sound as it seemed serious such as a bowel blockage and the ER would be my best bet. Stuburn as I am I went home to see if it got better. It did not, off to the ER, a CT scan and within 12 hours I was in surgery removing a block in my intestine. She was right on the mark and I'm in debt to her as things could have gone very south from there had I not taken her advice.

Dr. Tarantino is a wonderful and passionate physician!! She takes the time to listen to her patients and makes sure they get the treatment they need!!

UPDATE 4-10-24:

Please note that I am adding an update to the original post because this doctors incompetency continues to haunt me, and I encourage people who are experiencing pain to avoid this provider.

When I was treated by this provider she was complacent during multiple visits in helping me seek additional care for a persistent and debilitating hip condition. I spoke about the concern to her at several visits and she discounted my symptoms to muscle strains, my weight (primarily caused by the condition) and my mental health. She had no problem continuously billing my insurance, and yet took an unreasonable amount of time to refer me out to any specialists or physical therapy treatments. When I finally started receiving treatment and diagnosis, I found out I had a labral tear which also caused a degenerative condition of my tendon.

The way I see it is that she treated many of our visits as social hours, rather than helping me get to the root cause of conditions that have decreased my quality of life.

What made this entire experience particularly disturbing is how this doctor operated under a pretense of “caring about me” as she called it, while in reality she used my excellent insurance policy to boost the revenue of her new practice while I continued to suffer under her “care”. It is not common practice for me to leave negative reviews, but the way I was treated by Tarantino and her staff and how it's impacted my health, and finances is despicable.

I’m working on a complaint to the California Medical Board against this provider because not even anyone’s worst enemy deserves what she put me through last year.

ORIGINAL POST:

I would not recommend this provider. She’s been late to numerous appointments, even taking calls during the visit. When this was addressed with the doctor she claimed it didn’t occur. The office failed to answer or return my call for almost a week, but when my mom called from a different number the office suddenly picked up. My concerns were not properly addressed by this doctor and what should have taken 2 or 3 visits to find out took almost a year to uncover. She was defensive regarding my need for a second opinion and dropped me as a patient.

If I could give 0 stars I would. Judgy- definitely not a doctor you can open up to. Bigger than that though, she does not take allergies to medicines seriously- prescribing me something that google even told me is not potentially safe to take given my allergy history. Then shifting the focus (off of her poor treatment) to end the conversation by telling me I was rude to her front desk staff for simply expressing my frustration (not rudely by the way) about how she didn’t communicate effectively about the medication (which was not their fault) and how nobody called me back and my condition was getting worse.

I booked an appointment online to do a annual physical checkup and it was my first visit with the doctor through a new health insurance plan. When I booked the appointment online it said that I do not have to pay anything but then when I went to see the doctor they later billed me for 192 dollars for a 20 minute consultation. I called and asked why I was billed for 192 because I was there for an annual checkup and it should be free but lady said that since it was first time it was a charge to establish a new patient. The reason I am frustrated is that they never mentioned it was not a physical checkup and when I called and asked the difference between the physical checkup and what they charged me for the lady is not so nice and cooperative. The price that was charged for just talking to the doctor is ridiculous. Not going to John Muir again. It was my first and is my last time I am visiting them!