Sutter HealthReviews of sutterhealth.org

From what we saw online I as a business owner I would never recommend this company to anyone.

I have experienced the same issues as all of the other one and two star reviews on Trustpilot. My experience has been at Sutter independent doctors, Sutter Hospitals, Sutter clinics and a Sutter Surgery Center. I didn’t like Sutter Roseville Hospital 31 years ago or any year since, but I was desperate to get surgery for a foot fracture after waiting 7 months! Sutter Health is an impossible bureaucracy and the Sutter System is broken. The climate and culture stinks of unprofessional, unethical behaviors and statements made by supposed health care professionals. The staff, some nurses and doctors should be held accountable. There is an inadequate grievance and complaint process. When you are able to contact a patient advocate by leaving a phone message and receiving a return call, it’s only after days of playing phone tag that you speak to a rude and annoyed human being. Then, nothing is done to resolve the problem. I was given lip service. There is not a phone number, email or an address to mail a complaint listed anywhere on the Sutter Website. When a patient calls the general phone number, the phone representative refers to the website to file a complaint. You can file a “sort of” complaint on Sutterhealth.org, but it’s difficult to find. On the first page of the Website Click the three lines on the top right of the page. Scroll down to “contact us.” It’s at the bottom in small print. Click on it. Then, scroll down to “Comments and Concerns” Click on Comments and Concerns. This is the link to file a complaint and have a patient advocate call you and respond by email. It seems to me transparency may be appropriate. How about a link to complaints and a patient advocate? I suggest ..,go straight to the California Medical Board. Or, ask to speak to a supervisor when you call the general line. You may have to call the supervisor several times to get the patient advocate number, but you will eventually get results, unfortunately, I promise you——you will not find a resolution from the complaint department. Be prepared for retaliation from any person you may be filing a complaint about and make sure you’re prepared to find a new provider. Complaints about unprofessional behavior leads to more unprofessional behavior at Sutter. Also, be prepared to be told inaccuracies about the law and your rights as a patient. The blame will be put on you, the patient, for not requesting a form or knowing how to navigate a system that has no order. I have a misdiagnosed dislocation fracture of my foot by a Sutter Independent doctor. I was trying to walk on a dislocation/ fracture injury for six months, because I was told it was a sprain and then an ankle ligament problem. One month after the correct diagnosis was made, I requested one prescription of TRAMADOL, so I could sleep at night, because the Motrin, Naproxen and then Celebrex I was prescribed over the previous 7 months was upsetting my stomach. I needed to prepare for surgery. I needed to clean my house which had not been thoroughly cleaned in months. I hired someone to help me, but I was still in pain at night and couldn’t sleep with the little work I tried to accomplish. I now have Narcotic Drug Use listed in my medical chart. I have tried to have the medical chart amended and I keep getting the run around by Sutter. I am being treated like a drug addict due to pain that Sutter caused and one prescription, A misdiagnosed fracture is excruciating. I think one prescription is reasonable for pain! I never signed a narcotic drug contract for more prescriptions or requested another. I was told by Sutter, it was state law to have me take drug tests for one prescription. It is not state law. It’s Sutter’s policy. Never fill a prescription for any narcotic pain relievers from Sutter Health. Narcotic drug use will follow you for life, I have no trust in Sutter and I have cancelled all appointments and tests.

This company doesn't provide receipts for any payments. Any time you want a receipt, you have to call. Absolutely ridiculous and should be illegal.

If I could leave less than one star I would. This review is not about the Doctors, all that I have seen have been a tentative and caring. My issue is with their billing and scheduling. I had a CT scan that their staff did not verify my health insurance and just assumed that they would not have to do pre authorization. They told us that it was approved, we did the scan, and then we found out that my insurance declined the charge. Our insurance said all Sutter had to do was submit a pre-authorization and they would cover the procedure. Sutter refused to submit this and now we are out thousands of dollars. Our second issue is that now they can't seem to keep our appointments. We have had more than one appointment rescheduled and each time the next available appointment is more than 4 months away. This means we have been waiting almost a year for three appointments to happen. If you are looking for a new doctor, don't look here, go elsewhere.

I’m writing to share an extremely frustrating and disappointing experience with Dr. Davarpanah and Sutter Health that raises serious concerns about their approach to both patient care and billing practices. I went in for what was supposed to be a routine annual exam, only to find out that discussing personal health concerns—even related to existing conditions—is not allowed unless it’s billed as a separate office visit. Seriously? What’s the point of an annual exam if you’re not even allowed to talk about your health? To make matters worse, I was charged nearly $400 because the doctor on her own decided to increase the dosage of a medication I was already taking. I never brought this up, and it certainly wasn’t based on any recent lab work. The decision was made using outdated blood tests from over a year and a half ago—even though my numbers have remained stable year after year. That’s not just arbitrary—it’s irresponsible. This entire experience felt impersonal, unfair, and frankly, like a blatant money grab. It’s deeply troubling to see a healthcare system more focused on padding bills than providing thoughtful, patient-centered care. And forget not, Sutter Health is a nonprofit organization. Or should they be called only for profit by scamming the patients they are supposed to treat. If this is how they treat someone trying to proactively manage their health, I fear for how they handle more serious issues. It’s now been nearly seven months. I’ve been bounced from department to department. I was told an “ethics committee” reviewed the case and stood by the charge. But no one ever contacted me for my side of the story. How can a review be fair when the patient is excluded entirely? The process has been completely opaque and lacking in accountability. At this point, I feel morally obligated to speak out. In my opinion, Dr. Davarpanah’s actions were unethical, and my trust in both her and Sutter Health is gone. I strongly advise others to think carefully before entrusting their care to this provider or this healthcare system. I will not be returning.

I really wish I googled this organization before I became a patient. I come from Kaiser which has its own issues but untimely is easy to find doctors. After 20 years with Kaiser, I switched to Aetna and called the blossom hill Sutter health location to confirm they accept my insurance. They said they did based on my ppo. I didn’t see it on my Aetna app so I confirmed with the receptionist if this meant my insurance didn’t cover this doctor. Front desk woman said that sometimes new doctors take up to a year to update their accepted insurance so I was under false pretense and scheduled my appointment. I called other locations to schedule other appointments and confirmed if my insurance was covered and they all said yes and there’s a possible $20 copay. Day of the appointment, they took my insurance, suggested lab work, and found I have an abnormal ANA test. I was happy with my RN and how nice she was. Two weeks later, I get a bill for over $2k!! I literally did one lab test and had a consultation visit! No way do those cost that much. I know I’m being taken advantage of based on family that works in the healthcare field (physicians, insurance agents, and front desk admin). I called to confirm and they say oh actually it’s only around $900. I’m literally just an intern making minimum wage living pay check to pay check but ok they just want their money. Now I’ve been calling and Sutter health has basically threatened me and lied to me saying if I don’t pay my bill within 30-60 days then I’ll go to collections and they can’t help me because I messed up and should not have listened to their front desk staff. Make that make sense. I wish I never even scheduled an appointment as this has taken out so much time from my school and workload plus is very energy consuming having grown adults tell me it’s my fault and I have to pay or else they’ll send me to collections. I asked to see what the front desk staff see on their end when they run their insurance to understand and they refuse saying it violates HIPPA. The staff should have actually ran my insurance instead of avoiding the extra work to look up my specific plan. It’s my own health chart but ok now we’re following guidelines huh. Anyways I’ve called around 8-12 times and everyone tells me it’s my fault and they can’t help and won’t let me speak to someone higher up. One customer service said a good resolution would be to listen to the calls and retrain all their staff. That doesn’t help me at all. It seems like an issue with their training rather than staff. Definitely an issue with the attitude of their customer service representatives. Never once in those calls to schedule my appointment did they tell me to call my insurance to confirm. Anyways, Sutter Healths desk staff, Sutter Healths customer service, and Sutter Healths billing department is awful. Make sure to just avoid the hassle and go elsewhere. It’s too much for someone in my position to be dealing with where stress makes my illnesses worse. Unprofessional and borderline incompetent staff. No resolution yet and I’m suuuure they’ll be making me pay the full bill. If you don’t believe me, check out all the negative reviews on Reddit with many YOUNG people experiencing a similar situation of lying staff and bad customer experience. Great doctors and nurses but not so great anything else. Do yourself a favor and go elsewhere or make sure they actually run your insurance to not get hit with surprise bills!

I show up on time to find no one at the reception. 30 mins of trying the security guy who doesn’t care and calling an operator twice finally got someone out just to say that its too late for the appointment now. Zero attempt to accommodate. The girl working here simply doesn’t care. This is a review based on multiple bad experiences with the reception staff. This is not a review of the doctors and nurses to be clear.

June 9th, 2025, beginning time of visit at Sutter health in Castro Valley ( formerly, Eden Hospital ). Rushed my 22 year old daughter to the Emergency room just to find out it's being remodeled. What Sutter health has as a replacement is a makeshift department ill suited corner of the main floor that is too small and never meant to hold the high volume and dire need of humanity in an emergency state! Shame on you... your need to stuff your business banking accounts at the expense of the Anxiously tormented who have life threatening conditions or episodes yet you keep them on gournies in the crowded halls!! YOU COULD HAVE STATED THE HELLISH CONDITIONS OF PLACE AND SERVICES ALLOWING THE PATIENTS A CHIOCE TO RUSH TO KAISER, SAINT ROSE OR HUMANAS EMERGENCY ROOMS!! Now, it's 10:30 pm, I've been here 4 hours, my daughter is still on a Gourney in the Hallway in and out of Panic-Attacks that I have to ( Medic Training of mine) talk her down via our Cellphones!! Yet, I'm trying not to get asked to leave because my ANXIETY IS INCREASING. There is a Tech, his Name is JERRY... I'M STILL WAITING FOR HIM TO COME TALK AND SORT THINGS OUT, AS TO WHAT MY DAUGHTER'S CONDITION IS, AND WHEN WILL I BE ALLOWED TO COME INTO THE CHAO BEHIND THE DOUBLE DOORS IN ORDER FOR ME TO COMFORT MY KID!! I JUST SEE THE IDIOT TECH ( Jerry ) walk around and giggle with some of the Security Guards like a child on the playground, always averting or ignoring me... EXPECT A CALL FRON MY ATTORNEYS!