Florida Neurology Group

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Initially I thought Dr. Carracino was a little odd in his bedside manner and sense of humor.  I thought maybe it was his way of trying to bridge the gap between a patient who was in denial about any problems and myself as one who witnessed first hand a decline in his cognitive functions.  We has been sent to see him with MRI results from my husband's PCP and after taking a phycial history and conducting a brief mini mental status exam, Dr. Carracino recommended blood work to rule out Lyme disease because we were from the North East and my husband had been an avid golfer.  When the tests came back negative, Dr. Carracino had no other wisdom to offer us.  He did not listen to me and was disprespectful to me always referring to me as Mother and telling my husband that "Mother was concerned about him, this is what Mother's do". 
I suggested that perhaps we should do additional psychological testing to determine the cause for my husband's continuing decline in memory and in cognitive function.  Dr. Carracino just insisted that it was all in my imagination, that "Mother" was hovering too much and that my husband was just acting like a truculent teenager due to his declining ability to handle his diabetes.  He insited that my husband was fine and just had normal age related memory impairment.  This went on visit after visit with me pleading to do more tests and Dr. Carracino just brushing aside my concerns and insisting that my husband was going through a mid life crisis or something.
When I would continue to express my concerns that my husband was no longer able to calculate whether he should take insulin or not, when he did not understand the correlation between his blood sugar and whether the results meant he should eat or take insulin, Dr. Carracino told me that some people just never seem to get insulin and diabetes management  It wasn't until after my husband was diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo two months of daily radiation treatment with me having to tell him every day before his appointment that he had cancer and was undergoing radiation therapy that I finally got Dr. Carracino to take me seriously.  At that point he finally gave us a referral to complete neuropsychological evaluation and sure enough my husband was diagnosed with not one but two forms of dementia. 
Fortunately the doctor who performed the testing was great and gave me total feedback on the test results along with some reading materials and an agency to contact so that I could learn more about dementia and also seek assistance.  When we went back to see Dr. Carracino all he asked was did I get the diagnosis and then he finally gave us a prescription for Exelon and that was it.  No acknowledgment that he had been wrong for four years, no apology for misdiagnosing my husband, no apology for disrespecting me and worse yet no empathy or support or here's what to expect.  Absolutely nothing but a prescription and make an appointment in six months.
Needless to say I never went back.  I took my husband to another neurologist where I received compassionate and thorough care.  This new doctor also added Nomenda to the drug regimen and so although my husband's dementia was still there, for a brief period his functioning did improve but we will never get back the four years that Dr. Carracino stole from us with his incompetence, his lack of empathy and his failure to "first do no harm". 
I have no experience to rate Dr. Carracino on other aspects of neurology.  All I can advise if you or a loved one are experiencing signs of demential DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME with this doctor, you will regret the decison and you will not receive the help or diagnosis you need.  To add insult to this case, his office then proceeded to bill us incorrectly for the visit and nothing I could say would work.  Medicare paid a reduced amount of the fee because the visit was billed as a psychiatric counseling visit.  I tried to explain to the billing manager that Dr. Carracino was not a psychiatrist but a neurologist and had only seen my husband to update his file and add a prescription and that I am sure it was just an error in applying the billing code.  The billing manager refused to listen to me (made me wonder if she was related to Dr. Carracino since neither one seems to understand the concept of actually listening to paitients) so I told her she would have a long wait before she collected a check from me.  If you get a referral to this practice, my advice is DON"T GO.

Horrible rude doctors. The staff is very friendly and I rarely had to wait more than 5 minutes in the waiting room. Dr Bond was great but no longer there. Dr. Schwartz is evil.

They are in Fort Myers and Cape Coral.  I would give them all A's.  The doctor that my mom sees is Dr. Paul Driscoll.

I have been going physical and vestibular therapy. This was a visit to see how that is progressing as well as how the stent is doing following a recent angiogram.