Southern California Reproductive Center (SCRC) – Santa Barbara Located in Santa Barbara, California

Elizabeth W

2 months ago

We had such an incredible experience working with Dr. Maxwell in Santa Barbara. She was so educative, calm, informed, and helpful as we navigated the process. I would highly recommend her. I drove over 90 miles to work with her, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Claudia in the office is also extremely helpful and responsive. Just a note if you are working with this office, I found using the portal to be the best way to get a quick answer rather than using the phone system. Additionally, we worked with Suzanne Bangis and I wanted to give her a special shout out as well. She helps coordinate a lot of surrogacy pregnancies, and I cannot begin to explain how impactful she was on our journey. She is an incredible person to have on your team, and I will be forever grateful to her!

Claire Smiley

a year ago

My husband and I had an incredible experience with Dr. Maxwell and her staff at SCRC - Santa Barbara. We found Dr. Maxwell to be highly attentive, caring, and considerate. She always took the time to listen to all of our questions and concerns and explain thoroughly. The nurses and staff responded promptly to any questions I had through the SCRC portal and were very kind to us at every appointment (which we had a lot of!). Any time I had a billing question, the front desk receptionist, Pam, would assist and reach out to my insurance companies and would communicate with me promptly via e-mail. We felt very taken care of at SCRC and are very grateful for our experience there during such a vulnerable time in our lives!

L L

a year ago

I unfortunately had to switch doctors when I switched jobs and the doctor I was seeing was no longer in network. Dr. Surrey is the third doctor I have worked with while on my journey. The first doctor I saw was amazing and the doctor I am currently with is amazing as well. All that to say, I can confirm that the experience I had with SCRC is not the norm of how a fertility clinic should operate. I truly believe Dr. Surrey has no business being in this field. I should have trusted my gut from the very first meeting and not wasted a year of precious time on treatment with SCRC. It was bad from my initial consultation. Dr. Surrey spent all of ten minutes with me and it was clear he never took the time to review my charts from my previous doctor. From there it did not get any better. He turned out to be condescending, dismissive, and cold. He didn’t take the time to explain treatment and spoke to me as if I were stupid when I asked follow up questions. Terrible bedside manner. Worst experience I’ve ever had with any doctor in any field. I now willingly drive an extra two hours for care as to not have to go to this office. A few notes about SCRC: When you call the office, you automatically get put through to a call center who takes a message and you have to wait for a call back so you never get a quick answer to any of your questions. The patient coordinators are very nice but flaky and often don’t call when they say they will. They will find any way to get money out of you. They charge you for EVERY little thing. I was charged for things that the other two offices never charged me for. They try to add on things to your treatment that aren’t covered by insurance and are not necessary to have a successful cycle. When I asked about these things Dr. Surrey didn’t explain in detail exactly what they were for and how they were beneficial but said he recommended them. I also received a bill months later from an out of network lab that they had never used for my lab work previously. My insurance said they should have known not to use that lab. I was responsible for the entire bill due to their carelessness. As if fertility treatment isn’t expensive enough. My ultrasounds were done by a tech who never seemed to be very thorough. I never had an ultrasound done by a doctor. Not even my first one. If you are looking for an office where you see the doctor at each visit, this is not the one. And if you have another option, DO NOT choose SCRC. I 100% would not recommend this office to anyone. There is a reason why this clinic and Dr. Surrey’s ratings are so low.

Chris Cochran

a year ago

We did not have a very good experience here. The staff are nice people, but we could tell we were not a priority and they were fairly disorganized with medical records and instructions. We were driving 2 hours one way to see them here. For one, they uploaded another woman’s medical records onto my wife’s patient portal, whose medical history was VERY different than ours. We’re thankful we caught it before getting prescribed something that was totally not for us. Two, the day of our IUI (first time) they asked my wife to come back for an ultrasound (which you do NOT do on your IUI day) even though my wife asked about it and she was like “no , you’re supposed to have one” and then my wife had to say, “well the name on the monitor is not my name” and then the lady was like “oh I’m sorry, the front desk lady usually stops me if I have the wrong person”. Three, the day of our IUI, we arrived on time, I gave my sample, and we waited for an hour and 15 minutes before we got called back, and I had to step up and ask if we were ever going to be seen, then the nurse walked over next door and then got the doctor to come in (Dr.Maxwell). Ideally, the sample is deposited as soon as it’s washed, but is only good for up to 90 minutes. Google search this and every article agrees. My semen sample was collected at 8:30am (although our paperwork said 8:44). The doctor did not come in to “deposit” it with my wife until 9:51am. She apologized, that she was in another surgery. I know the IUI is quick, but we didn’t realize they double book doctors at the same times, and it felt like that other procedure was more important than our first IUI, which maybe it was. We felt like such an inconvenience to them. They also haven’t even followed up with us since the IUI, like radio silence. I understand it’s the holiday season, but we just felt like a number here. We have a WIN fertility benefit through my company, and it feels like they got they their money and that’s all they were worried about. We will not be going back. Again, the nurses that work there are nice, the front desk lady was kind, even Dr. Maxwell was nice to us, but we did not have a good experience. This was our first attempt at anything beyond FemVue/HSG, and it was not a good one for us.

Suzann Sturz

a year ago

Do not go to a doctor here! SCRC has been the worst business I had to deal with in a very very long time. Do yourself a favor and find a different doctor so you don’t have to go through SCRC. There have been so many headaches dealing with this business that I completely regret going here and wished I would have just driven the 200+ miles to go to a different doctor. They got my husband’s email address wrong so he was unable to access documents. They got my date of birth wrong so now all of my records with them and the labs have the incorrect DOB. They billed us $230 more than the amount we were quoted. They billed us again after we already had paid our invoice. There were other annoyances as well these are just a few examples. I honestly feel bad for the doctors that work for this business because they are doing them a disservice. It sucks because all of the fertility doctors in the area are under SCRC. However, if I could go back in time I would have chosen a doctor that was not part of SCRC even if that meant I had to drive 200+ miles each time.