Dr. Rony L. Shammas MD

Dr.karkut is responsible for my father's death. If he would had given my father the proper treatment and timely referral to a heart valve specialist, my father would be alive today. If you have mitral regurgitation and trouble breathing, just know there is surgery that can repair your valve. Don't allow karkut to keep increasing your diuretic dosage. PLEASE SEEK A SECOND OPINION. IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE. My father had been seeing Dr.karkut since 2019. He was diagnosed with mitral regurgitation, and he kept having trouble breathing. Dr.karkut had my father on diuretics and kept increasing the dosage when my father would complain about his breathing. Apparently, this was the answer to the problem. 2021, my dad condition became severe, and Dr.karkut referred him to a heart valve specialist who was a colleague in this practice. The entire time, there was a doctor who specialized in my dad's condition, in the same practice as Dr.karkut, and he didn't refer my dad until it was too late. That specialist immediately referred my dad to a surgeon. My dad didn't make it to the surgery he died 6 days before his second consultation. IF DR.KARKUT WOULD HAD DONE HIS JOB PROPERLY, MY DAD WOULD STILL BE ALIVE. ANOTHER HOLIDAY WITHOUT MY FATHER. He had more life to live

This was by far one of the best experiences I have had with a vidant related health center. I have put off getting my heart and chest issues checked out for YEARS because of how bad my experience was with the last vidant cardiologist was... Dr. Smith was amazing. The whole team was kind, compassionate, they listened, and were not dismissive AT ALL. Dr. Smith listened to what I was most concerned with and even though it wasn't what concerned him he agreed to run some tests just to reassure me. GREAT DOCTOR. He looked me in the eye while speaking and he actually listened. Wonderful experience and I would recommend this office to anyone and everyone.

I've been a patient there for 18 years. The staff is friendly, knowledgble and easy to get along with. The heart failure clinic is exceptional! Alison rocks! They are my second family being I've spent so much time with them all. Best of the Best!

I do not have a complaint about the medical service I received but I do about the management that runs this practice. I was concerned with medical history in my family and asked to have a nuclear stress test and other test to determine if I had any issues. Not knowing how much this would be or how much if any my insurance would pay I asked during checkout from my initial visit what the costs would be. I was told they had a person who worked with the insurance company and they would be in touch with me beforehand. Two days prior to the procedure I still had not heard from anyone at Vidant Cardiology so I called. Eventually I got to the person that handled insurance. I asked specifically how much this would cost with out insurance so I would know if I could afford it if insurance didn't pay. He told me "between $1400 and $1500. Based on that and knowing that insurance would pay at least part of that I agreed to go ahead with the procedure two days later. A month later I received a bill for $2458.00. Insurance paid $720 leaving a balance of $1738. After several calls to Vidant Cardiology speaking with various people all eager to pass this problem on and /or having little to no knowledge of my conversations with this I finally arrived (by phone) to the Practice Manager who listened with interest and promised to get back to me that very day. She never called back. A week later I called her and she said she was having trouble getting to someone in the Vidant organization that could help her but again promised to call me back. Still no call back. Two additional weeks pass and I called again only to hear the same old story as I listened to her tell me I just needed to call the billing dept and make a deal with them. I did finally get a call from a couple of folks in Vidant Patient Services. The knocked $237 off my bill to make it $1500. Vidant: There is nothing wrong with a patient asking how much this is going to be! Insurance is terrible these days and this was out of pocket expense to me. I made my decision to have this procedure done based on the incorrect information I was provided by your office. I was treated with the attitude of "How dare you ask us how much we charge, we are Vidant and you are just a patient! " Find another practice that treats people with respect and gives correct information when it is asked for. Again, it is OK to ask what this is going to cost me!

I saw a doctor, whom I will not name, for PVCs (note this is my first time ever to see a cardiologist). When I got there, I saw a nurse practitioner who was very kind and then he came in. He had no manners, acted like he knew everything (made me feel dumb), spent all of 5 minutes with me (only listened with his stethoscope) and told me I was fine. He said I had PACs and they are common. If I started feeling worse to call and he’d prescribe medicine. I had my primary doctor refer me somewhere else because this guy was ridiculous. Needless to say, fast forward , I had a heart monitor for two weeks and an echocardiogram (from Eastern Cardiologist THEY ROCK). It ended up that over 30% of my beats are either PVCs (27%) or PACs (3%) and they found a murmur (mitral valve prolapse) on my echocardiogram. I’d suggest caring a little more and spending time with your patients.