Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center

I had minor surgery in July. The nurses, the anesthesiologist, and the doctor were all great. Aside from one nurse, everyone was extremely friendly and tried to make me feel at ease (I suspect the first nurse that was quiet and awkward and unable to get my IV started was new, so I will give her a pass). I felt safe and cared for and the doctor personally called my husband to let him know it had gone well and that I would be awake soon and to head up to come get me.

Went to the er with my girlfriend for some respiratory issues she has been having. What a nightmare. They run one test and send you back to the waiting room. Run another test, back to the waiting room. For 8 hours. At one point there was only 10 or so people in the waiting room and we pretty much had to beg for discharge papers after being there all day with little to no information given on what was wrong. Never before have I seen such a chaotic medical system. Went out for a cigarette after 5 hours and was accused of doing drugs on the way back in by the check in nurse. Also the bathroom in the er was worse than a gas station bathroom. Will not be going back!

(Update) Do not recommend this hospital, the departments do not talk well and bounce patients around. They are only looking to move beds at a Corp level and the amazing nurses and doctors on site pay the price. This would have been a 4 or 5 because of the Nurse, PT OT and Dr Allen. Sending my wife to get the car, then make her wait for well over an hour. Transport was called and took an hour but grabbed 2 people discharged after me. People hate hospitals and the good nurses take the hit for poor management of the services staff. Right now someone is waiting for my bedroom to but has to wait even longer. They ruined a good experience in the last two hours. (Update) trying to receive any kind of medical explanation of restrictions and were not given at discharge even though I was there for 3 days. Transferred around for 1.5 hours. Best to drive down to Portland maybe they are better

My husband stayed three weeks in this hospital five years ago and I had to put on my warrior suit and fight tooth and nail to get him decent treatment. Rooms were ridiculously small, only large enough to comfortably fit one person yet two were crammed in. I had to fight for a larger or private room. Extremely stressful for me in an already stressful situation trying to get him the care he deserved and stressful for him to not be in an environment that’s conducive to healing. Nurses were overworked and understaffed. Thankfully the staff seemed pleasant and skilled but everything was inconsistent because there were so many traveling nurses. Now my husband is back in this hospital. We had no choice but to come here for the procedures he would need done so we were hoping things had improved. From what we have seen so far they have not. The ED is a total joke. The entry, triage and security is ridiculous making sick people wait in line to be triaged before going through security and into the ED. A woman came along slumping sideways nearly unconscious in a wheelchair with an apparent stroke according to the person with her. She was just left there to wait in line behind people who from outward appearances should have been at an urgent care and not an ED. People with serious problems are forced to wait long (like hours) times jammed in a space that’s too small, especially with COVID on the rise again, making do with horribly uncomfortable chairs. Now with my husband in a regular room there is no improvement there either. Rooms in dire need of renovations, still too small with no privacy between roommates besides a flimsy curtain. How is that not a HIPA violation when patients can overhear each other’s conversations with medical staff? My husband’s roommate had a, shall we say blowout while heading to the bathroom and a nurse attempted to clean it up with wipes but there’s still residue on the floor. And this is on the oncology floor where many patients are immocompromised! None of this is conducive in any way to healing. And here we go again with overworked and unresponsive staff. Thank goodness they are pleasant, well most of them anyway. I have tried all day to obtain the results of blood cultures done four days ago, well over the 48 hours needed for results to show, and not one nurse or doctor can seem to remember to get those for me. Yes I have checked the patient portal and they are not there. Being in this hospital is an extremely frustrating and stressful experience both for the patient and for the family. Why is it that the Northern Light system can pour money into building a beautiful new and modern hospital in rural Greenville ME and not make improvements in their main Bangor hospital?

Billing department has no clue. My bill is completely different from what was submitted to insurance. Insurance overpaid by more than $20k, then they lied and claimed the payment was reversed then billed me 18 months later charging me for care that wasn't provided. For any other appointments they try to claim my insurance won't cover the services because they are too lazy to actually check it and try to convince me to not have the tests performed even though they are in fact covered. Imagine someone not getting care because they are misinformed their insurance won't cover and being very ill. Save yourself and go to another hospital.

GO SOMEWHERE ELSE IF POSSIBLE!!! This hospital has caused nothing but trouble for my partner and our newborn baby girl. We went in at 32 weeks because of intense contractions and being almost unable to walk entirely. When my partner was admitted they gave them an injection to stop contractions even though they said multiple times "oh it doesn't look like your having any contractions. My partner was in excruciating pain from the contractions that WERE HAPPENING but they did not trust us more than the machine... Instead they monitored them and our baby and almost sent us home with preeclampsia. They didn't know if it was preeclampsia until after the C-section, after rude nurses acting like it's not that bad, after all the eye rolls the actual operating doctor and anesthesia tech were both very professional and we liked them the most. I believe he was Dr. Anderson and I wish he worked at a different hospital for next time. We will be going to a more accepting and organized hospital. Almost all the nurses tell us contradicting information or none at all. DO NOT GO HERE FOR DELIVERY!!!

7/11/24- Got the run around with the billing department after an issue with the mail and ended up in collections. Incompetent staff. Every experience we've had with them has been awful. 7/12/24- For some context, college daughter had an x-ray mid-April, we have a new post person and I discovered that they weren’t delivering her mail. Called the hospital because we were expecting a bill and didn’t think I’d have trouble because she is on my insurance. They would not give me information because I didn’t know the exact date of service since she’s over 19. All I wanted to do was pay the bill. Had to go talk to the post office and finally started receiving her mail. Called back to find out she’d been sent to collection LESS than 3 months after services had been rendered. She never received a final notice. I expressed all this over the phone, got passed around to a couple people but ultimately was told there was nothing they could do because it had already been sent to collections. She is good about doing things herself but I was trying to help since she was finishing up school for the year, working a couple jobs and also starting an internship. They’re wasting everyone’s time and funny they reach out wanting to help only once I made a public review.

Go somewhere else. Most of the really good doctors end up leaving the individual offices. Makes you wonder why. They are so booked you can't get an appointment in any decent time frame. Even when you call their offices you have to leave messages, and no one returns your call. In the hospital itself I had surgery and had to stay in the post op ward because they had no rooms available. During the night the nurse on duty was talking so loud to another patient it woke me up. I mean she was talking LOUD. I was due for a hearing test, and no one ever called me, finally after a long time I get a letter stating the audiologist has left and there is no one to do my test. I am fed up with this hospital's services.