Anne Crenesse, MD

Dr Anne Crenesse is the best in the business, she is attentive and knows what she is talking about, she makes you feel very comfortable and knows her patients by name and history i totally love her been a patient of her for over 10 years

I love Dr Crenesse. She is nice, knowledgeable and takes her time with you. She has been my primary care physician for maybe 10 years. She listens, takes notes, asks questions and considers your issues. It is the doctor/​patient relationship you would hope to find.
I completely acknowledge that you might wait 30 min to an hour to see the Doc. It is annoying, but I think it is worth it. I think it has to do with the amount of time Dr Crenese spends with you and with the flexibility the practice tries to have in fitting everyone in. A couple times they fit me in same day when I really needed something.

I am very touched by your words Jennifer and Kevin. Although, I am no longer there at NYU I hope the office is delivering the level of service that you guys and every other patient deserve. Jennifer say hi to your mom for me it was a pleasure meeting you both. Likewise, Kevin say hi to your mom and sister. I hope you are all doing well. Being able to make your visits comfortable was the best part of my job. Love and miss you guys!

I’ve been a patient of Dr. Crennesse’s since I was a child and I am now 24, entering graduate school. Just this morning my mom and I were talking about Anne Crenesse because I had been abroad this whole year and hadn’t experienced her new office until March of this year, 2014.
I have always loved Dr. Crenesse, but it is true that her last office was run badly. Apparently at the last office the office staff and nurses would be not so nice to patients they didn’t like or who they perceived to be rude. My mom and sister, who also go to Dr. Crenesse, never had a problem, but we’re also aggressively cheerful to the staff (just kind of how we do things). Here’s the thing — Anne Crenesse gives so much time when she sees you, and obviously really cares and is really very present when she is in the room with you. I have also always thought that she spends a lot of time with us when she sees us — but that’s not just specific to us.
At her last office, the wait times were epically long — but my mom and I realized this morning that we both just saw that as the price we paid for having so much personal, one-​on-​one time with Dr. Crenesse. With this new office, we can see that the wait times were not about the doctor at all is — and with her office being run by such impressively professional women (I love Wendy!!), there’s no reason not to make her your doctor.
P. S. I started a Unilocal account just to post this review. So that tells you something!

I’ve been a patient of Dr. Crenesse for about 5 years, and have recommended her to many people over those years. She is a fantastic doctor. She is extremely easy to talk to, frank, honest and not pushy. She is not prescription happy and will avoid prescribing something for you if it has possible harmful side effects — but she will always find a way to give you what you need. I always trust her judgement.
I have to mention her old staff, though. All the horror stories were true, and then some. But her current staff has completely erased those issues. They are pleasant, attentive and knowledgeable. One in particular, Wendy, is a pleasure to deal with. Though I’ve only been to the office a handful of times since Dr. Crenesse became affiliated with NYU Langone, she greets me by name (even once recognizing my voice over the phone), remembers my previous visits and asks me how I’m feeling, and from what I have seen, she does this not only with me, but with everyone in the waiting room. As somebody who tries to reflect that sort of ideal in my own line of work, I appreciate how difficult it is to come into contact with a high volume of people on a daily basis and still recall them by name. That extra touch is nice, and reflective of not just Wendy, but among the entirety of her current staff members. They all make that extra effort.
As a previous reviewer suggests, when you read the other comments, please consider that most ratings posted before 2014, unless they were revised recently, are probably basing their negative experiences on her old, terrible staff. And even if those reviews, Dr. Crenesse herself still has glowing recommendations. She is truly an excellent doctor, and now (thankfully) she has a staff to match.

Dr Crenesse is a fantastic doctor! No complaints with staff aside from one of their new receptionists. expect to wait a lil bit to be seen but I promise, she’s worth it!

I have been a patient of Dr Crenesse for the past 6 years. Her medical knowledge, bedside manner and memory for the details is excellent. She takes the time to listen and takes your thoughts and ideas into account which is rare among doctors. I highly recommend her to anyone who needs a primary care physician.
Until late 2013, her office staff at LICH was seriously sub par. You can read all of the other reviews if you want detail on why. She recently joined up with NYU and has a brand new staff. They are fantastic. They are friendly, responsive, effective and efficient.
Make sure when you read the recommendations below, that you take into account that the ratings are mostly based on the old staff. You can also refer to her profile
to see some more evidence of the old staff problem… and Dr. Crenesse’s excellence.

I am a fan of Dr. Crenesse! This rating is for the Doctor only. I agree the administrative support staff needs to be revamped but I am not going to the Doctor’s office to see the support staff but to see a Doctor.

UPDATE: I just heard that SUNY/​LICH has shut down this practice. Because of bad follow-​up and bad billing, I correct my original three stars, just for the record.
Original three-​star review:
Props to Dr. Crenesse for being open to unscheduled walk-​ins for a limited period in the morning. An old school way to practice family medicine that I appreciated when I couldn’t get to my regular doctor and needed quick attention.
Office staff weren’t terrible as some have said, though not great. I waited two hours, which didn’t surprise me thanks to Unilocal reports. The answering service is quite a bit worse than the receptionists.
Little bedside manner, rushed examination. Before I saw Dr. C, the med-​tech type used a digital blood pressure machine, which isn’t as accurate as the stethoscope method but can be handled by a lower-​skilled person. My whole experience (including followup in the bowels of the almost-​closed LI College Hospital) felt a bit Soviet. The third star is for Dr. Crenesse’s willingness to treat sick people, which only a minority of US physicians bring to the job.

Dr. Crenesse is wonderful: the most patient, down-​to-​earth, kind, insightful MD that I have ever seen. However, her office staff is so terrible that I feel I have no choice but to search for a new doctor.
In the six months I’ve been a patient with her practice, problems have included:
— Waiting 90 minutes for a scheduled appointment (that I arrived on time for)
— Waiting 4 hours to be seen during «walk-​in» hours
— Being put on hold interminably when phoning for an appointment or question
— Being abruptly cut off in mid-​sentence on the phone and put back on hold
— Having referrals submitted improperly by office staff
— Having office staff refuse to re-​submit improperly submitted referrals
— Having office staff insist «that’s not my job» in response to questions or problems
— Having office staff treat me so rudely that it brought me to tears
From conversations I’ve had with other patients in the waiting room (and there’s plenty of time for conversation when you have to take the whole day off of work just to get in for a ten-​minute appointment!) these things seem to be the norm. It’s unacceptable.
Again, Dr. Crenesse is wonderful. I just wish that I could see her in a different setting with a completely different (supportive, communicative, polite) office staff.

I have to disagree with the top reviewer (who seems to stay at the top no matter what? Interesting. Must be some Unilocal thing I don’t know about. I actually suspect that her staff may be adding all these 5 star reviews to keep the rating balance alive — but I digress…) and concur with the majority of the rest. I saw Dr. Stroud in this office. I’m reviewing here because neither the practice — LICH Family Medicine — or the doctor I saw have an entry yet on Unilocal.
The doctors at this practice are truly, truly good, solid doctors. Dr. Stroud could occasionally be hurried and scatter brained, but most of the time she listened and responded well to most of my concerns. The problem is that in a doctor’s office, quite a bit of your time is spent dealing with the office staff. And at this practice, the primary issue is absolutely their abominable, insufferable, HORRIBLE staff. They are unfailingly inappropriately loud, rude, dismissive, unhelpful, and generally the textbook definition of poor customer service and patient care.
The last straw with this office (and there were many before this one) was this past Monday when I found myself knee deep in throes of the flu, pregnant, with chronic respiratory disease. I called the office first thing that morning to see if I could get an appointment to see Dr, Stroud. I got the voicemail (as usual, no one EVER picks up the phone at this practice) and was reminded that there were walk in hours that day. I know what walk in hours mean at LICH Family Med — it means HOURS and HOURS of interminable waiting — so I decided to stay on the phone and see if I could reach a person just to make sure that it wasn’t at all possible to get an appointment. After several attempts, including redialing the number over and over again and getting no one, I decided to just show up.
When I did, the receptionist, after making me wait for her to finish her personal conversaiton with another member of the staff, unceremoniously informed me that one of the doctors was on vacation, the other was sick, and that I could return on Wednesday — two days later — if I wanted to be seen.
First of all, if they had picked up the phone EVER I could have avoided dragging myself, flu riddled, pregnant and on the verge of an asthma attack to the office in the first place. Second of all, since there are no doctors in and therefore no patients to see, it BAFFLES me why the fact that walk in hours were effectively canceled was not added to the voicemail — especially since they never answer the phone. Did I mention NEVER? Yeah — NEVER.
It was a blessing in disguise though, because after meaning to for months now, I finally got off my duff and found a new internist. I made an appointment at a wonderful practice in the city with a person, in 10 minutes flat. My doctor saw me 15 minutes after I walked into the office. He determined that I needed to see a specialist, so the staff made an appointment for me with a pulmonologist while I received breathing treatments in the office. (!!!) I was treated like a sick patient and a paying customer and I didn’t have to wait for anyone to finish discussing thier weekend to attend to me the entire time I was there. I bet the billing will even be done correctly — the impossibility of which was a foregone conclusion at LICHFM.
I don’t know why or how LICH Family Medicine continues to operate the way they do and keep patients, but I’m done with them for good. They can fail to call in refills, fail to read charts, smack gum while they loudly discuss people’s charts, and otherwise display with precision what it means to give bottom of the barrel service with someone else from now on. I’ll take my business elsewhere.

Dr. Crenesse deserve five stars but dealing with her office staff keeps me from rating it five stars. She is smart caring and is everything you would want out of a doctor. They need to have office staff with the same qualities.

Dr Crenesse is good however her support staff are awful. Rude, unorganized, unhelpful. So much so my wife and I left to another practice.

Dr. Crenesse is a comforting and thorough primary care physician. She has an excellent bedside manner and explains things very clearly.
Her practice takes walk-​ins on certain days of the week, and thus, long waits occur in the mornings of those days. I don’t understand folks who give a five-​star doctor two-​stars because of their impatience. It seems very unfair to rate a doctor based on your waiting room experience. She explained to me how undervalued walk-​ins have become among primary care physicians in New York City. Most folks can’t get an appointment when they are sick. Who wants to wait a month for an appointment when you are sick TODAY? I waited about 2 hours today and walked out feeling much better about my ailments. Can’t beat that.
In short: She’s the best, but bring a good book.

Love her. But, as others have said, the office staff is incredibly unresponsive and unhelpful, which makes it not worth it.
Update: The office is much better after the move and the affiliation with NYU!

Dr. Crenesse deserves 5 stars — she’s the best. I wish she could be my doctor.
BUT it takes 3 hours to get in to see her. Doesn’t matter if you’re a walk-​in at 9am or a scheduled appt. during the day — the wait is UNACCEPTABLE.

I’ve since switched doctors. Dr. Crenesse is still lovely, and I thought most of the staff was very friendly and sweet, but after waiting over two hours for my appointment multiple times, I had to find somewhere else to go. I don’t know many people who can afford to spend so much time waiting for a doctor’s appointment — I certainly couldn’t.

I have decided to stay as a patient of Dr. Crenesse. Everyone in this neighborhood knows, she’s the best! I am pleased that there are new phone systems in place. However, all the calls are going to voicemail. The professionalism of the staff has somewhat improved. As a former medical assistant, I know that it is impossible to please everyone and mistakes will happen. But all it takes sometimes is a smile and a warm greeting to make your patients feel welcomed. Overall, I have faith that things will turn around for the best.
I’ll keep you posted!!!

I think Dr. Anne Crenesse is a kind and thoughtful person. She takes established patients in the morning. This is great for sick people.
I am glad that I found her.

Dr. Anne Crenesse is a busy family practitioner in Brooklyn Heights who has a wonderful bedside manner and will remember all about you, even if you only see her once a year. She is not prescription-​happy, which is something I appreciate, but will give you an Rx if you need it. Furthermore, she’s got such a vast knowledge of medicine that she will give you an old-​school, not oft-​prescribed drug if she thinks it’ll help you. When I had a lingering cough that was not responding to anti-​biotics, she tried what she called an old-​school drug that no one prescribes anymore, but what helped quell the mysterious cough (the medicine was a cough suppresant that quiets the nerves leading to coughing, some type of bizarre somatic condition that can remain even when the infection is gone).
She’s resourceful, well-​connected (has given good refs to other doctors), charming, and just enough sassy to make visits to see her much better than the toil most people experience when seeing their doctor.