Dr Richard Bensinger MD

Nope. Don’t do it. The waiting room was pretty gross for a doctor’s office, and the place smelled just shy of moldy. 30 minutes after my appointment was scheduled to begin, I asked the receptionist when the doctor would be seeing me. He told me that as soon as he finished with his current patient, he would see the other guy in the waiting room, then me. Turns out the other guy had been waiting for an hour at this point. I got my co-pay refunded to my card and walked out the door.

I don't typically write reviews, but please don't go. The only reason they got one star is because the receptionist was nice. The least of the problems was there was clutter EVERYWHERE, but I should've taken it as a sign to get out. As for the doctor - I've never been treated that rudely by medical staff in my life. I went because I've been having double vision as well as severe life sensitivity at night which has been making night driving difficult. When I told him these things, he told me that my double vision was only caused by "wearing contacts" because contacts "move around your eyeball". He laughed and told me I never needed corrective vision in my left eye and "that could be causing the double vision". He said to take my contact out of my left eye and it'd be better. I did. The whole room looked distorted. He said my "right eye is fine and only 20/30" though whenever he tried to have me read letters with that eye alone, everything was blurry and led to immense eye strain. He refused to dilate my eyes because my "eyes are fine". I left with a pounding headache due to eye fatigue. I've never felt so medically gaslit in my life. He DID write a prescription, but it was a mixture of odd illegible letters that made zero sense, and when I asked him about it, he pretended he didn't hear me. He did that frequently. I would try to repeat myself or speak louder but he would feign deafness. I thought he was hard of hearing at first, but after a couple of times, I realized he wasn't confident answering medical questions or thought himself above answering his patient's questions. He would also get really close to and breathe heavily in my face. That particular detail isn't too important, but it made me feel uncomfortable. My husband and I don't have medical insurance and the appointment cost $200. $200 to be told nothing was wrong with me. He basically stole from us. Times are tough, and we can't afford insurance and it's hard enough buying groceries. All that to say - I can't understand the 5 star reviews. My only assumption is that they were written by bots or friends. I should've left when my gut feeling told me something was off. Now I'm out $200 with more questions than answers... or should I say, ZERO answers.

The front desk receptionist is rude. She wouldn't look up my insurance when I asked if I was in network and she proceeded to just tell me to look it up myself. She proceeded to tell me that it's up to me if I want to proceed and possibly take on out of network costs instead of doing her job and ensuring I was given the best quality of care. I've never in my time going to the eye doctor experienced such laziness at the front desk. She can literally look it up, just as easily as I did and with better assurance of truth. It's literally her job.

I read the reviews beforehand and was a bit hesitant at first. Yes, the office feels a bit dated, but no less professional. He did need to get a bit close to my face to check my eyes, but it didn't feel to be anything odd or out of place for an eye exam. Very nice doctor who has been in practice for a long time. I was in and out with zero issues and he was very nice.

BE AWARE if you are an L&I patient and you are scheduled for an IME, record your appointment and hire an attorney to represent you. If L&I is sending you here it is because they are trying to drop your case early and quit paying your medical bills. To record you must let the office and your claims manager know 8 days prior to the appointment. (A brief history about me) I sustained a major traumatic brain injury by being struck in the left temple with the corner of someone's phone at work. This is an ongoing complication. My eyes no longer work together. I can not read because one eye wants to party and the other wants to get good grades. I have a really hard time looking at computers, just to write this I am using speech to text and spotting it here and there. Please forgive me for mis-grammar. I have seen two highly professional specialist and they both believe that my condition resulted from the head injury itself) I knew going into my appointment that L&I was doing some suspicious and unethical practices to close my case. Both my "so called" vocational manager and Claims manager let it angrily slip that if the stuff I was doing didn't work then they were going to drop the case. These were two different incidents. When I went into Mr. Benninger's officer his assistant was incredibly rude and did not act like a hospital or office assistant. I listened to the way she spoke to someone on the phone and it was no better than how she spoke to me. The email address is @yahoo.com. For someone who is decent with tech and well versed in business this is a major red flag. This is scary and very concerning. This told me he is not legit. When He called me back to his office area it was more of a long closet with incredibly old equipment that should not still be in practice. There were papers and clutter everywhere. The eye chart was even centered in front of the chair. When he pulled the dinosaur equipment to my face I was terrified to put my chin on the rest or touch anything it was so gross. I was honestly scared to touch anything in the "closet" he called an office. When he was having me look with one eye through the little holes he kept putting some weird, non useable lenses in front of my left eye and told me I was being suspicious because there was nothing but air. He couldn't even tell that he had old, scratched up lenses in front of my eye making it impossible for me to see his letters on the wall. Which by the way I saw more of his head then I did projection on the wall because as I stated before it was aligned with the chair. I asked if he worked with head injuries and he said "yes" but then corrected himself and gave a story about how he has L&I claims from all over so people see doctors near where they live. He then pointed to a massive stack of L&I files on the floor. He said these are all cases I evaluate for L&I. The files were stacked up to about my knees. I was even more aware that this man was doing something with darkness behind his eyes at this point. He barked at me about some expensive book like that was supposed to reassure me that he had the knowledge of my situation. Any stress on my eyes would turn them bright red. My head hurt and I could hardly see. He made many comments about how hard I have it at work. He knew that I needed help. He knew I needed vision therapy. He said all of these things and then started He started asking me questions that had nothing to do with my eyes. Questions about my history. Questions that made it clear he was going to find away to blame these symptoms on something else. He said "I know what you have, Alternating Exotropia." 1. Neurological disorders affecting the brain and/or nerves controlling the eyes 2. TRAUMA... INJURY He is putting it my file that my symptoms are pre-existing THIS IS A LIE. NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS TRUE. He is working with L&I so they can drop my case and not pay for the 10 years of vision therapy and possible surgery. Two other specialist have confirmed I need from this injury. There is more to this but not enough space. Attorneys know!