Melendez-Eisma Elisa MD

Might be the laziest so-called doctor I’ve met. Basic ask to check out a sore muscle and the staff called me an hour before my appt and said they did not take workman’s comp claims. First red flag. No where does it say anything about workman’s comp, doc totally made it up. Then the story changes to my ask is acute care based and the so-called doc, and MD is not able to treat acute care patients - 2 red flags there. In short - avoid SCL health and Elisa Melendez - extremely poor quality of care. Moving to UC Health now.

I would NOT recommend Dr. Elisa G Melendez to anyone. I have to say, the visit I had with her was one of the worst experiences I have ever had. To begin, I do want to say that the front staff, assistants and lab techs were wonderful, and this review should in no way reflect poorly on them.

I showed up early for my appointment and was called into the room in a timely manner. I had made the appointment to address a few large and small issues I had been dealing with. The assistant was attentive and kindly explained that the visit would probably not allow for all of my concerns to be addressed, so we narrowed them down to 2 points. I then sat for a little over a half an hour, waiting for Dr. Melendez to see me. The assistant, to her credit, did check in on me, offer me water or something while I waited and apologized for the long delay.

Once seen, Dr. Melendez mentioned that we could not cover my laundry list of problems during the visit. I was surprised at her comment, as I already hashed out this problem with her assistant, and assumed that it would have been discussed before she came in. I said as much, and told her I only had the two issues I needed to cover. She went into one of my two problems, spent a lot of time reading on the computer, discussing a treatment they did not offer in office, and then offered that we take some labs to try and narrow down the issue first. She did not seem very engaged, yawned on multiple occasions, and did not seem to rely on much personal knowledge or experience to help in my diagnosis. She then began wrapping things up to send me on my way. I was quite surprised, as we had not covered the other topic of my concern. When I mentioned this, she became visibly irritated and stated that I had agreed that we would only take on one topic during the visit. She may have meant to ask me to narrow down to one question, but this never occurred. I know this for a fact, because I would have chosen the topic that was left out, to discuss over all the others, as it was the number one reason I came in and the most intrusive in my day to day life. Additionally, I had only been in the room for a little over 15 minutes. She then angrily and crudely ordered me to undress, to examine my problem. She quickly decided on what she would do about my issue, without much discussion, and left the room to order a prescription. When she returned, I asked her if this was normally how she treated her patients. Up to this point, I had been extremely understanding and friendly about how late she had been, and she repaid me with disinterest, irritation and anger. She rattled off a quick list of insincere "I'm sorrys", and then left the room.

In follow up, I sent her a message through the patient portal to inquire about a question I forgot to ask in the appointment. I had included a potential remedy and also asked for her input, if she knew of a better solution. She merely replied that the idea I had would not be suitable, with no other comments.
I sent a final email re-asking her for her professional opinion/suggestions, and she has not replied.

She is clearly not interested in helping people, and from what I saw, does not have much to offer patients medically or emotionally. Not only did I feel that this was a waste of my time and an office visit, I left so upset by the experience and how I was spoken to, that it took me 2 hours to calm down.

In short, don't make the same mistake I did.

Terrible bed side manner and very rude. The appointment was rushed. I will not go back to her ever again.