Arsht Steven J MD

Dr. Arsht was fine. Nice guy. The problem arose when I got a bill from the hospital at the end of the year, saying I owe them in full because Dr. Arsht wouldn’t take my insurance. When I originally called for an appointment, I obviously specifically asked about my insurance, and they lied about accepting my insurance. They even took my insurance at the front desk on the day of my appointment, and said nothing about it being a problem. I paid the price at the end of the year. If you want to see Dr. Arsht, make sure you double and triple check with his admins and your insurance that you are covered.

Dr. Steven A J was sexiest and condescending.

Like all doctors, Orthopedists can be hit or miss. If I were rating his office, in general, I would give it the same 3 that I would give any practice at Beth Israel. It’s not always their fault. I had to call them to get a follow up after my MRI. Reaching people can be difficult. Chaos tends to reign & sometimes you have to wait for appointments (always always make sure that you have confirmed your appointments beforehand), which sucks when you are in a lot of pain. You can get an appointment with the physicians assistant but after my last experience with an Orthopedic PA and a missed diagnosis (one that could have had serious consequences), I will not put my initial care and diagnosis into a PA’s hands.
In order to get to the doctors, who are almost uniformly good, you have to suck up the chaos and the long wait for a crowded elevator. The adage about being responsible for your own care goes double at Beth Israel.
But this review is for Dr Arsht who has made the list as one of my two favorite doctors because he’s just a good guy on top of being an excellent doctor. All of the good words apply to Dr Arsht. Attentive, Kind, Inspires confidence, Competent and bow tie. I love the bow tie.
If you are curious about the other doctor in the top 2, It’s Dr. Blechman.

SO I am running the NYC Marathon and my knee has been bothering me my GP gave me the info for Dr. Arsht and so I contacted them and was given an appointment 3 weeks away. I needed it a little earlier since the marathon is coming soon. So they me an appointment with his «assistant» and that was 2 weeks away. I took what I could and just layed off my knee for a bit.
I get to the appointment and I was told that my GP didn’t fax my referal. my husband and i along with the receptionist waited and waited for quite some time until a lightbulb went off and the receptionist said «Oh wait our fax has been out for a while. Can they email it?» We had to make the phone call again to my GP so that we could get the ball rolling.
After I fill out all the paperwork and such I sit and wait. Then I was called up to the front desk and the receptionist wanted my co-​pay right away. I began to write a check and was told that he does not accept checks. I didn’t have my ID nor my Credit Card because I left it at home I asked if I could call when I got home to give them my CC number and NOPE not a chnace.
She told me I could not be seen without payment. I told her that I was running the NYC marathon in a few days and she just stared at me. She didn’t even ask me if I wanted to reschedule. I have never been denied medical treatment before. I don’t even know what the guy looks like!
I feel that I should have been warned first off and I would have made sure I had everything with me. PLUS he would have made a lot more money from my insurance then my measley co-​payment.
Would not even consider stepping foot near there again.

Can’t even begin to imagine where all the unkind words came from that I read previously. Dr. Arsht was totally on his A-​game; friendly, understanding, knowledgeable, etc. He was not rushing to next appointment, he was not disinterested in my knee issue, and came up with a well thought out and intelligent game plan to follow in the event that the pain recurs in the future. Would highly recommend him.

I want to thank Dr. Arsht and his office for how attentive they were in my case. First, Dr. Arsht the entire time was extremely personable and made me feel extremely comfortable throughout the entire process. I was truly surprised by the amount of time he spent explaining details, keeping in touch with family during each procedure, sitting with me all the way up to the start of each surgery. Besides him being an attentive doctor, my surgeries both were very successful and I am on the road to complete recovery where I thought I might never run again, and now I am. The team in his office were just as great and helpful when working with them. I would highly recommend Dr. Arsht as a trustworthy professional and skilled surgeon.

This is an edit to my earlier review of 4 stars stating that Dr. Arsht is great, but it’s a shame that his front office staff dress like strippers and are extremely rude and borderline incompetent.
I’m editing it because of an unfortunate experience I had with Dr. Arsht. Now, I do believe Dr. Arsht to be a skilled Dr and Surgeon, but I do not agree with the way he ultimately handled my case and it’s a shame because I felt like he just «gave up» on me. I’ll leave you to decide.
I had injured my shoulder in June 2010 and began seeing him in August 2010. I thought he was very compassionate and agreed with his courses of treatment (not too conservative but not too quick to cut me open either) which eventually lead to him feeling I needed shoulder surgery for a SLAP lesion. fair enough. I’m very active and agreed with surgery, I just wanted to get it over and done with ASAP before returning to my regular season in March/​April 2011. Now, I had a similar but much worse injury back in 2005 in my other shoulder that ended up needing open surgery as opposed to arthroscopic once they got in there and saw the full extent of the damage… in my appt to see Dr Arsht two weeks before the scheduled surgery, I voiced this concern and asked him the likelihood of this happening again — he said zero. absolutely no chance. he said based on my MRI films and x-​rays, the damage was much less and he thought the surgery would remain arthroscopic and very simple at that.
Now, I will say that in the 3 months I saw Dr. Arsht, I did notice he was not in the office a lot due to vacations — I’m pretty sure he took 3 of them while I saw him, one of them was a long weekend somewhere right before my scheduled surgery — from which he called me the Friday morning before my Monday morning scheduled surgery.
He told me that although this was very difficult for him to do and although he had lost sleep over the decision the previous two nights, upon reviewing my MRIs and my patient history with the other shoulder surgery I had 5 years ago again, he felt more comfortable referring me to his more experienced colleague since he had a feeling the surgery might require going in open again! I was shocked to get this news, in the 11^th hour no less, but I was thankful that he voiced his concerns and he was handing me off to a more experienced colleague… I was, however, very worried about the timing of everything — here I was emotionally, mentally and physically ready for surgery and he just hands me off to someone else with no guarantee that it could be done anytime soon!
Not to worry, or so I was told — he said he had already spoken with the surgeon who could see me that Monday and that she most likely could do the surgery on Tuesday — only one day later. I felt good about this… I felt that Dr. Arsht was taking care of me, and he really cared about me. I felt that he knew what I was going through and I believed him when he assured me that he’d do everything in his power to make sure this surgery happened ASAP.
Boy was I in for a surprise. First of all, when I saw his more experienced colleague, Dr. Cuomo (who actually did the surgery in my other shoulder — the only reason I saw Arsht in the first place was because Cuomo was no longer in my network), she had no idea what he was talking about — she said it was a very simple surgery and she would absolutely not need to go in open. But then again, she IS more experienced and maybe she just confirmed something Arsht just wasn’t 100% about — fine. BUT surgery on Tuesday? no way in hell. She was all booked up for the next 5 weeks…
This is when I began to call Dr. Arsht again… what happened to you doing everything in your power to get me on the table ASAP?! I guess once he handed me over to Dr. Cuomo, he just forgot about me because none of my calls were ever returned. By some stroke of amazingly good luck, there was a cancellation and I was able to get ¹¹⁄₉ for a date and the actual surgery happened 3 weeks later than originally scheduled as opposed to 5 weeks, but that’s because of Dr. Cuomo’s amazing surgery coordinator, not Dr. Arsht. I never heard from him again.
I had the surgery on Tuesday ¹¹⁄₉ and all went well — Dr. Cuomo put in three anchors via arthroscopic surgery only needing three portals. She has done a great job… and my one request? Dr. Arsht is not even allowed in the OR as she worked… I didn’t want him getting a cent by pegging himself an assistant during the surgery. I’m just disgusted the guy never bothered to call me again — he just pushed me off his plate onto Dr. Cuomo’s probably because he wanted to extend his vacation. I actually think the guy didn’t bother looking at my MRI films until the wknd before the scheduled surgery. Someone needs to take a few ethics courses, in my opinion.

It’s not possible to find a better doctor than Dr. Arsht. He’s smart, caring, responsive and fixed my knee! He’s been working with my knee injury for a while, and without suggesting surgery on the first visit, ultimately decided it was his recommendation. I had an amazing experience from scheduling with Edna and all of the help on the day of surgery and afterwards with the Physician’s Assistant Danielle. In an additional bizarre twist, this doctor ALWAYS sees you on time — no waiting! Love Dr. Arsht and all of them!