Pacific Urology

I am so surprised to see poor reviews for this place. Dr Long was my doctor. I felt he listened very well to my issues, did the appropriate tests and recommended trying a drug free remedy for my issues to see if we could do with out medications. Katelyn, his assistant and everyone I came in contact with in the office was courteous and professional, The waiting room was not full and the appointment was on schedule. I had a great experience here. I would recommend Dr Long. My only complaint was the pages and pages of forms with redundant information. It would seem they can find a better way to do the intake. This issue is the same across the board. It would be nice to see the medical community catch up in this area.

This place is very unprofessional and unorganized. I got a confirmation call for my appointment and got there in time. Once i got there i was told i would not be able to see the doctor… I waited months for this appointment and i got hit with the worst excuse. Took time off work and was treated like a bag of walking money… Never coming back

I tried to reschedule an appointment with Dr. Hopkins. The office staff is completely rude and unprofessional. They put me on hold for 10 minutes, and then snootily told me I had to see the PA because I was trying to reschedule several days in advance. I have never experienced that in any other doctors office. It shows complete lack of bedside manner. Very rude!!!

This Dr. Has no right treating patience at all. He doesn’t listen and is completely unprofessional.

Yes, Dr Hopkins was somewhat arrogant and self effacing, however he’s one of the best urologists I have ever seen. He was thorough and he cared. He performed surgery on me with great results. What makes me angry is that I received the letter that he had «left». and I had an appointment scheduled which was changed and I saw Dr Brandeis. He was a total aloof JERK. This was my first meeting with him. He knew nothing about me and insisted upon discussing just the results of my latest blood test and testosterone levels. He made no attempt at getting to know me. I got the usual 15 minutes instead a thorough fact finding like any new patient would receive. Then he told me to call if I wanted anything.
I don’t know what happened with Dr Hopkins, but I feel that as his patients, we have a right to know, and the opportunity to seek his services if he is still in the area. Dr Brandeis wouldn’t answer any questions about Dr Hopkins, saying he wouldn’t discuss it.
It feels like Pacific Urology is more interested in competing with those Boston physicians relating to sexual dysfunction than providing total urological care. Welcome to the Hi-​Tech vs. Hi-​Touch 21qst century.

My appointment with Dr. Brandeis at this «practice» ranks up there as one of the best haunted house experiences of my life. That would be great if this wasn’t a doctor’s office. He came in sweating profusely, greeted me plastically, and then proceeded to interrogate me like a bad cop episode of CSI, while recording it all into a microphone (presumably archiving the session for all of his professional needs later). I remember the exchange being unnecessarily argumentative. He seemed curiously desperate to ‘debunk’ a host of «red flag» symptoms listed by several reputable websites (e.g. Mayo Clinic, Medline Plus, WeMD, etc).
After responding to a litany of worrying symptoms with casual indifference, he conducted a shudder-​inducing physical examination. The tension that followed could only be described as «bad uncle day.» Ultimately I found someone I felt was more competent and less strange in Berkeley.
The least offensive way I can characterize my experience at Pacific Urology in Walnut Creek is to say it was like reliving all of the worst aspects of a childhood dentist appointment, but as an adult man.

Doctor Hopkins was my Doctor. The wait time was always over an hour. Very frustrating. After two surgeries and many visits I would have expected a farewell letter. One that was actually signed by Doctor Hopkins. Very unprofessional. Go somewhere else. NO MORE PACIFIC UROLOGY FOR ME.

The lack of patient care is appoling to me. All my years in the medical profession i have never heard or seen a Dr office that has over looked such a high number of patients. Both my father and husband were under the care of Dr Hopkins when he abruptly left the practice. They both were seeing him for health issues that need a drs constant supervision and yet both their appointments were cancelled last minute and never rescheduled. If we had done this we would have been charged a huge cancellation fee. Both my husband and father saw Dr Hopkins for what could be life changing or even ending reasons. You would think that would give the office reason to call to get them. I would like to remind this Drs office that they are dealing with peoples lives for whatever reasons Dr Hopkins left that still doesn’t make it ok to but patients lives in danger. I also would like to remind the office that with out proper care and medicine a patients body could start shutting down. I would strongly suggest you start opening patients files and reading.

Looks like they finally got rid of that first class A-​hole, Brian Hopkins… he cared more about flirting with the girls in the office than he ever did about his patients. Good Riddance!!!

Amazing that these guys no longer have Brian Hopkins, MD, on staff! We got a letter in the mail. He was the BEST doctor of the bunch! The other doctors were condescending and rude to my father. We will NO LONGER be going to this group!

I can’t say anything about other doctors at this place but I can certainly tell you about my experience with Dr. Hopkins. I called the center to find out if any doctor would be willing to review my father’s test results and suggest options for treatment as my father is overseas. I was willing to pay whatever they wanted for consultation. Dr. Hopkins volunteered to go over the results. Dropped off the results the next day or so. That was more than a month ago. I have called at least more than a dozen times and left voice mails plus messages with the reception. Every time I am assured that someone would call me back and yet no one has. I have even asked to at least retune the results as they included his ultrasound pictures but no response.
Completely unprofessional, unethical and simply arrogant people who don’t care at all about their patients. This review is for Dr. Hopkins. I don’t even know if he ever peeked at my father’s results. He could at least respond!
UPDATE: they called me after the review and told me that Dr Hopkins had left. They were really nice this and returned my father’s results. Updating the rating and review

Lots of negative reviews here. I’m surprised. Dr Brian Hopkins sees me and is always great. I even look forward to seeing him. And I do trust him. The waits can be long, but I like to believe they are thorough. I have no complaints.

Yes the waiting to see Dr. Hopkins is frustrating and at times his social skills are lacking. I just had surgery last week and can’t say enough about his skill as a surgeon and his genuine care for his patients. I had excellent care at John Muir in Walnut Creek and the nurses all said he really has his patients best interest in mind when he sets up their treatment plan. The negative comments here seem to be from people who never had a procedure done by Dr. Hopkins. I highly recommend him, I didn’t go to make a new friend or have someone tell me what I wanted to hear, I went to hopefully find a skilled surgeon who is top in his field and Dr. Brian Hopkins is just that.

I have seen Dr Hopkins two times. The first time I waited for an hour before being seen. I was sent off to get lab work done. I passed it off as a bad first experience. The second time I waited an hour again only to be told I needed to go get another lab test. I showed up for my 3^rd apt. to get the results from the lab and was told that the Dr had not even arrived yet. I had an 8:30 am apt and there were two people in front of me. I asked for the records in which I brought to him from my previous dr. I had to pay $ 25 to get papers that belonged to me back! I hope to find another Dr that genuinely cares about his patients and is not so egocentric

After waiting for one month, filling out papers and gathering documents, I arrived on time at 8:45. I was warned to be on time with all documents or I would need to make a new appointment. At 9:30 I was summoned to an examining room where I sat for one hour. There was an empty waiting room when we arrived and the examining rooms appeared empty and the level of activity was extremely. in fact I only saw three women sitting in front of three computers. Dr. Hopkins might be the best in his field but I will never know. I spoke politely to the woman at the desk who responded with a casual «ok». Look else where for a urologist.
J. Harrington

I had a few appointments with Dr. Brandeis, and pretty much all of what people are saying on here is true… the waiting, the lack of interest/​care from the doctor, the poor organizational skills of the office staff. What got me the most however was when I called in one day to get a recommendation from Dr. Brandeis to get a testicular biopsy. All I needed was the name of the doctor he wanted me to call to have the biopsy done. Every time I called the office I spoke with a receptionist who said she’d deliver the message to Dr. Brandeis and have him get back to me immediately. I told her I was in pain and this was an emergency. She empathized and promised me someone would get back to me very soon. I am not exaggerating when I say this because I counted: I called them 12 times over the span of 12 consecutive business days before I finally got an answer from somebody (it wasn’t Dr. Brandeis who responded). I am a very patient guy, but I was so frustrated at this point that I told them I’d be divorcing Dr. Brandeis as my urologist. Whether or not he has the expertise as a urolgist was irrelevant to me at this point, the complete lack of professionalism and personal care were enough for me to move on. I would not recommend him to anyone. They seem too busy to run a good operation here.

I’m surprised to see all the negative feedback. Not in my case. I had to see Dr. Brandeis for a procedure and his performance was exceptional. He is the best at what he does. Yes I do recommend seeing him.

In contrast to the previous reviews my vasectomy experience was as good as one could hope from such a sensitive operation and Dr B. did a fine job guiding me through this experience.

This office is run so poorly that I cannot describe how frustrating it is to deal with them. I have called at least a dozen times and been left on hold. Finally get through and schedule an appointment with Dr. Hopkins. Filling out the new patient forms on line but they don’t save so you lose all of your data. Call and they say that doesn’t work. They have no email to send completed/​scanned forms. A week before my appointment they call 4 times to remind me to send the paperwork that they have had for month. On the way driving to the appointment they call and cancel and say it has to be rescheduled however they are only rescheduling for one specific date. which is when I’m out of town. never saw the doctor but if he is anything like his staff then it’s likely you will be in worse shape than before you saw him
Avoid at all cost. there are many much better urology offices out there.

My experience with Pacific Urology is much the same as what the others wrote about their experiences, late, rude, the doctor on his phone repeatedly during my 10 minute visit after waiting 1 hour to see him, actually stating into his Dictaphone right in front of me –The patient has had ample time to asks questions and is satisfied with my explanations.- Not true at all. Patient got to watch him answer his phone and check his text messages. Now after $ 170.000.00 surgery I have to find another doctor to repair the work that the ‘doctor’ with the major God complex, did to me.
Today in the mail I get a pamphlet letting me know he is holding a FREE seminar on how to repair the very damage he caused me.
I truly hope he experiences Karma.

Dr. Hopkins is wonderful! He spent over 1.5 hours with us going over every detail of an important surgery. I cannot express how thrilled we were to be treated so well.

I also had Dr. Brandeis here. Same thing — asks questions as he dictates into a microphone. Incredibly terrible «bedside manner,» but I don’t need a friendly doctor — all I want it one who is on time. Every time I go here I wait in the room for 40 – 60 minutes. Today was no different. They moved my appointment to fit them better, so I comply, they ask I get there 15 minutes early, I comply, then wait in the waiting room forever. Again. After 45 minutes I went back, got my co-​payment returned and left. I will NEVER come here again. They started to ask me about rescheduling, then realizing that I was furious and clearly would never be back, said «call us and let us know when you want to reschedule.» When you guys teach Dr. B the concept of ‘being on time” and what «courtesy» means, I’ll reschedule. Should have been a ten minute follow up appointment — easy as you can get. Turned out to be a waste of 60 minutes of my life and forget the time I wasted not being at work.
If you want to change my appointment from 10 to 1, then be ready for me around 1. If you want me there at 1:45 instead because Dr. B is working on someone, which is ALWAYS the case, then schedule me at 1:45, not 1. There is a thing called «courtesy» which I have yet to ever see at this place. 45 — 60 minutes waiting in a room twiddling your thumbs is UNACCEPTABLE for any doctor.
Not just that — my meds are supposed to be set on 6 months intervals. Yet EVERY MONTH I go to get them, the pharmacy says the prescription has expired. So I have to call the office and get them to do the six month prescription. They claim they are, then next month, I have to go through the same thing. It’s incredible.
I make my payments. My insurance does their job. I show up when they want. Yet they don’t do their job. And I got the sense when I asked for my money back and stormed out today, they felt I was wrong. The thing is, I’m positive when they told Dr. B that I had stormed out because waiting around for an hour is not acceptable, he just said «who’s next?»
NEVER again.

Wish I could say something good, but that was not my experience. The Urologist (Dr. B.) sat through both appointments and dictated into his laptop microphone the whole time. He would ask me a question with the microphone in front of his face, and then say my response to his questions into the microphone. He rarely made eye contact and was done in 5 minutes. Talk about not feeling like a human.
Then when it came time to get lab results they would not give them or mail them to me. Kaiser lets you look at them online for free. Instead I had to make a co-​payment to go in and get my normal results. Again, felt like it was more about the money than the patient.

The worst place I have ever been to! Dr Sethi offered no solution to my kidney stones just «wait to pass them» that was over a year ago. Then they came back this week and I tried to make an appointment and can you BELIEVE they wouldn’t make an appointment because I had a balance I guess I didn’t know I had. I moved and didn’t get the bill. Then to top it off I asked if I could have the balance and pay it and they said no I would have to call the collection agency! Hello I have been in the ER twice this week and I am in need of help because I am in so much pain and they wouldn’t see me or even make an appointment until I got that taken care of! That is the worst business practice I have ever heard of! I will never go back there again and I would tell everyone to stay away! They don’t care to help people get better it is all about the MONEY! STAY AWAY! Especially the «Office Manager» Nancy she was the worst most horrible person to talk to!

After waiting well over an hour past my appointment time, just for the consultation for a vasectomy, I still decided to go through with it. Went out for my procedure, and the idiots never put my appointment in computer. I hesitated to yell, since I thought it may have been my screwup, but after digging the appointment card from my wallet, it proved I was correct. Wait 4 hours, or reschedule in 3 weeks were my two options. I chose the 3^rd option, walk out and find another doctor

I had a cancer scare. He was incredibly thorough. He cleared me and then checked again just to be sure (so I was very assured that it was true — I was okay !) He looked over my xrays with me and explained everything. He even showed how my bladder Cat scan showed my heart arteries. I remember when I first had the scare how reassuring he was. If the news had been bad, I know he would stuck with me through thick and thin.

My husband was referred to Dr. Brandeis by our primary care doctor at John Muir after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Dr. Brandeis had excellent credentials and the surgery was not complicated, so we decided to have him perform the surgery. Our initial meeting with him was OK, although we didn’t get a whole lot of information about the surgery, etc. When we saw him in the pre-​op he was joking around and acting like he was about to go play a game of basketball – no sensitivity whatsoever for my husband or the surgery that he was about to undergo. His post-​op instructions were «take a couple of vicadin, if that doesn’t work, take a couple more… you’ll be fine to walk out of here after the surgery.» My husband almost fainted when the nurses were trying to get him up in recovery and thank goodness for the great nurses in the recovery room who recognized that my husband needed to stay the night in the hospital. It turned out that he had internal bleeding, which landed him in the ER two night later. My husband then had a CT to determine whether the cancer had spread beyond the primary tumor. When we went to Brandeis’s office, he started casually chatting about his college and sports rather than telling us about the CT results, which he had just glanced at. He finally told us that it looked like «there are some shoddy lymph nodes». When I asked for futher explanation, he didn’t give one. Luckily, we had an appointment with Dr. Meng at UCSF Cancer Center for follow up and the subsequent surgery to remove the affected nodes. Dr. Brandeis wanted us to be sure to apologize to Dr. Meng for the giant hematoma that Brandeis caused during the surgery which showed up on the CT and made it tough to see the internal organs. He never apologized to my husband for that – who was experiencing a lot of pain from the hematoma. We also got the sense from other JMMC staff that he is universally disliked among the nurses and even the imaging technicians. He assumed that my husband would have to have chemo, but he did not have to. I highly recommend Dr. Max Meng at UCSF (surgeon) and Dr. Charles Ryan for urological oncology – they are my husband’s doctors and we should have skipped Dr. Brandeis altogether.

Experience has not been great. they don’t call back when they say they will. The dr. needs to see you to say, it’s time to schedule another CT Scan. But the worst was having my husband do a biopsy at the hospital and it was not conclusive. Ok. maybe that wasn’t Brandeis’ fault but when we went in to find out if my husband had cancer or not, Brandeis sits down and starts reading his file. We had to wait two weeks to hear whether or not he has cancer and the Dr. decides to open the file for the first time when we got there? Then he needed to ask a question to the person who did the biopsy so he didn’t even give us an answer that day. Anyway. has not been good. Seems like he is the only Dr in the area that specializes in kidney problems.