L.A. County Health Dept. Allegedly Falsified Nursing Home Records of Complaints

L.A. County Health Department Allegedly Falsified Nursing Home Probe Records

By Anna Gorman  
Kaiser Health News
November 10, 2014
 

The Los Angeles County Public Health Department falsified the dates it received complaints about nursing homes as pressure rose to meet state deadlines for launching investigations, according to two employees.
In a letter last month to county, state and federal officials,  inspector Kimberly Nguyen cited 11 cases in which she said the dates typed into the computer system were later than the dates the complaints were actually received. The cases mentioned in the letter involve alleged abuse, falls and pressure sores, she said.
“In my belief, falsification is a serious matter and unlawful and our department should know better to not manipulate paperwork to mislead others and the public,” Nguyen wrote in the Oct. 7 letter.

...Meanwhile, the state, which directly oversees nursing homes in every district except Los Angeles County, has had its own history of problems with timely investigations. A lawsuit by California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, or CANHR, resulted in a 2006 order by a Superior Court judge instructing public health officials to follow the law regarding investigation timelines.
Geraneo noted that order in her e-mail to administrators, referring to a case involving a non-working generator in which the complaint year had allegedly been changed from 2013 to 2014. “We cannot change the initiation dates of these complaints because of the CANHR lawsuit!”
Geraneo declined to be interviewed.
Since Kaiser Health News began writing about the department’s health facilities inspection division in March, administrators have sent e-mails to staff telling them not to speak to the media and to forward all requests. Reached by phone, several inspectors have declined to talk, saying they feared retaliation.
Nguyen said  she has been she has been targeted for retaliation as a result of raising questions since July 2013 about the quality of nursing home oversight.
In May 2014, Nguyen was suspended for five days without pay because she allegedly failed to renew her nursing license. A department letter said her license expired on November 30, 2013 and that she worked for six days without a valid license.
But as the Board of Nursing later confirmed in writing, her license actually had been renewed promptly. The Board simply hadn’t entered the renewal on its website.

 

 

 

L.A. County Health Dept. Allegedly Falsified Nursing Home Records

California Health Line

November 10, 2014

Two Los Angeles County Public Health Department employees allege that the department falsified the dates it received nursing home complaints in order to meet state deadlines for launching investigations, Kaiser Health News reports.

Background

Under state law, investigations must be launched within 10 days of receiving a nursing home complaint -- or within 24 hours if the complaint involves the threat of death or serious harm.

The California Public Health Department requires inspectors to enter dates based on when the complaint was first received by phone, fax, email or letter.

Details of Falsified Records

In a letter sent last month to county, state and federal officials, Inspector Kimberly Nguyen cited 11 cases in which she found records with falsified dates.

The dates entered were much later -- as much as 79 days --than the dates the allegations actually had been submitted.

The cases involved complaints about:

• Abuse;
• Falls; and
• Pressure sores.

According to KHN, Nguyen said she believes the date manipulation was deliberate (Gorman, Kaiser Health News, 11/10).

Nguyen said her supervisor, Adewole Adegoke, has been aware of the record falsification since July but has made no effort to stop the practice (Nguyen Letter, 10/7). She wrote, "In my belief, falsification is a serious matter and unlawful, and our department should know better to not manipulate paperwork to mislead others and the public."

Meanwhile, Sharon Geraneo, an assistant supervisor at the department, sent a separate email in August about the department allegedly falsifying records.

Response to Allegations

The county Department of Public Health said it has "zero tolerance for intentional document falsification" and is not aware of any deliberate falsification.

Officials said that they had identified a data entry error by one individual that affected 35 cases but that "swift and appropriate corrective actions" were taken.

The California Department of Public Health said it is investigating the allegations (Kaiser Health News, 11/10).

One-fourth of bed alarms were broken before UCSD patient wandered away to his death

When Thomas Vera wandered away from UCSD to die in a nearby canyon in May 2013, executives across the University of California Health System were cutting positions of staff members who dealt directly with patients.

But those positions weren't cut because there was no money. The money was being shifted to administrators. It seems that the University of California's priorities have been shifting away from patient care to profit over the past several years.

But the greed of the executives and doctors at UC isn't the only factor at play in tragic patient deaths. I see another problem here, and we're all to blame for it. It's our refusal to talk about what should be done for terminally ill or injured patients. Sometimes hospitals are held hostage by families who demand miracles for their dying relatives. Losing a loved one is difficult, and some people can't accept the inevitable. They demand every test and treatment that might possibly give some short term benefit, and they even threaten to sue when their 95-year-old grandmother dies.

Few people want to talk about how to apportion health care dollars. The major exceptions to this are the vocal advocates of leaving large numbers of Americans without health coverage. In other words, these individuals want to let economics decide who should live and who should die. The advantage of this position is that it insulates its adherents from making specific choices about who should suffer or die. They want to let the market choose. Of course, the market is increasingly controlled by wealthy corporations and individuals who are taking a bigger and bigger share of the economy each year. The wealthy and their advocates apparently believe that fewer and fewer people should have health care.

Currently we spend an inordinate amount of money on the elderly during their last year of life, and, in particular, their last month of life. The truly disturbing aspect of this enormous outlay of healthcare dollars is that those who receive expensive hospital care during their final months have a lower quality of life than those who receive hospice or home care.

In the Archives of Internal Medicine, a study asked if a better quality of death takes place when per capital cost rise. In lay terms...the study found that the less money spent in this time period, the better the death experience is for the patient.

--Why 5% of Patients Create 50% of Health Care Costs?
Michael Bell
Forbes
1/10/2013

Obviously, if UCSD can keep the latest high-priced medical equipment in good repair, then it's perfectly capable of keeping bed alarms working. The California DHHS recently revealed some facts about the case of Thomas Vera, a UCSD patient who wandered into a nearby canyon and was found dead several days later:

State inspectors said the hospital failed to routinely test the buttons and failed to repair them when broken.

Prior to Vera’s disappearance, the most recent test had revealed more than 1 out of every 4 panic buttons at UCSD’s two main hospitals didn’t work.

--Broken Bed Alarm Blamed for Walkaway Patient's Death
By Steven Luke
NBC 7 San Diego
Sep 15, 2014

Is this the best that all these high-priced UC administrators can come up with? A patient dying of hunger, thirst and exposure in a nearby canyon? Obviously, UCSD can do better than this. AFSCME notes: "Care providers are forced to give special treatment to VIPs—so-called because of their wealth or relationship to UC administrators—at the expense of other patients."

It seems quite possible that Thomas Vera might not have recovered from his head injury even if he hadn't wandered away. He had apparently been in the hospital for weeks, too ill for surgery, and suffering from the delusion that he was being held captive in a garage in Texas. Perhaps he would never have become a good candidate for surgery. Would this man have had a better quality of life in his last days if he'd been in hospice care, or at home? It seems clear that he would have.

And would another person have benefited more from being in that hospital bed? It's hard to see how anyone could have benefited less than Thomas Vera did.

Perhaps UCSD administrators engaged in a chain of thought similar to these musings of mine when they created the situation that allowed Thomas Vera to wander off and die of exposure in a canyon. Did UCSD make a conscious decision to maintain expensive medical technology while neglecting low-tech life-saving gadgets for certain rooms?

The University of California has an enormous amount of political clout. Why not use that power for something besides making billions in profits from its health care system? Why not lead the discussion about how much of our health care resources should go to the terminally ill or injured?

A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES: Profits, Short Staffing, and the Shortchanging of Patient Care at UC Medical Centers
This report was written by AFSCME Local 3299 over the course of several months in 2012 and 2013. It is based on interviews with Local 3299 members employed at UC Medical Centers, reports by the California Department of Public Health, inpatient discharge data from the State of California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, as well as additional sources.

The public sees University of California Medical Centers as premier, world-class facilities. We rely upon them when our loved ones face the most serious illnesses because we expect them to provide the highest level of care. With the UC Medical System earning $6.9 billion in operating revenues and hundreds of millions in profits, it has the resources to do just that.

But recently, patient care advocates have witnessed something else: administrative decisions that prioritize UC’s profit margins over patients’ health. These decisions reflect a shift in values that reached a tipping point with a system-wide policy in 2011 that decentralized UC budget practices, and turned each medical center into an independent profit center.

This culture change is evidenced by a sharp rise in management salaries and compensation, excessive management costs, and unprecedented borrowing to construct new buildings.

Since 2009, management at UC Medical Centers has grown by 38 percent, adding $100 million to the annual payroll cost of management.

Debt service payments have almost quadrupled since 2006.

This diversion of patient care dollars results in management’s need to capture “efficiencies” to bolster profit margins.

While “efficiencies” can be positive, they can also have serious negative consequences. Often taking the form of aggressive cost-cutting measures, some translate into chronic short staffing, over scheduling of operating rooms, prioritizing “VIP” patients over everyone else, shortchanging charity care, and outsourcing essential services.

These degrade the medical centers’ core mission.

Care providers are painfully aware of administrative priorities that too often leave them unable to provide the care that patients deserve. Patient care workers suffer unnecessary stress and fatigue, and at times work without adequate training on the use of hazardous materials used to sterilize patient care areas. Some report being so rushed in their work that dirty patient care areas may not be properly sanitized before new patients arrive.

While workers are already feeling squeezed, the University is threatening to cut staff. At UCSF Medical Center, management recently announced its plan to reduce 300 hospital workers, or 4 percent of its full-time workforce. These reductions are being proposed at a time when the medical center is only just recovering from having to ration respiratory care services in January 2013 because of inadequate staffing levels. To make matters worse, the hospital’s CEO admits that, in his view, these cuts are needed, at least in part, to free up resources for new construction...

Frontline care providers give examples of how UC policies degrade safe staffing and patient care.

Patients often fall trying to go to the bathroom by themselves because short staffing delays staff response times. In one instance, a patient classified with “altered mental status” did not receive one-on-one attention and was found standing on a windowsill.

Chronic short staffing creates excessive workloads and stress. One nurse’s aide reports being afraid to take breaks because it would increase the ratio of patients to CNAs from 10:1 to 20:1.

The UC health system seeks to “re-align” Medicare and Medicaid patients to non-UC hospitals under the assumption that they often do not require the level of care UC provides.

Care providers complain about dirty patient care areas. An operating room assistant sees dried blood and fluids in the crevices of an operating table month after month...

Profitable high-level procedures get overscheduled, causing stress and exhaustion for care providers and delays for patients.

The State of California provides significant funding for the University’s Health System. In the fiscal year 2012-2013, it will provide approximately $300 million in public dollars for health sciences instruction....[Read more here.]


Broken Bed Alarm Blamed for Walkaway Patient's Death
Thomas Vera died after he became disoriented and walked away from his hospital room at UCSD Medical Center in May
By Steven Luke
NBC 7 San Diego
Sep 15, 2014

California Department of Health and Human Services records obtained by NBC 7 shed new light on what went wrong inside UCSD Medical Center when a disoriented patient walked away from his supervised room into a nearby canyon.

The [May 2013] lapse in hospital security led to a tragic search which ended when ...Thomas Vera’s body was found [several] days later less than a mile from the hospital entrance in Palm Canyon.

Family blames the hospital for allowing 58-year-old Thomas Vera, suffering severe head and neck injuries as well as [delusions], to leave the facility...

According to the CHHS investigation, Vera’s bed alarm never sounded. Vera was under video surveillance, and when nurses were notified, the report states they “attempted to contact security by paging security twice with no response and then pushing the panic button twice with no response.”

The panic button was “broken for 8 days,” according to the report.

State inspectors said the hospital failed to routinely test the buttons and failed to repair them when broken.

Prior to Vera’s disappearance, the most recent test had revealed more than 1 out of every 4 panic buttons at UCSD’s two main hospitals didn’t work.

“That’s incomprehensible to me. This is a big time, generally well thought of medical facility, and it’s like clown school” said legal expert Joel Brant, an attorney who specialized in elder care law.

[Maura Larkins comment: I don't believe they're clowns. They're clever, and they're calculating. The buttons were not a priority. UCSD pays huge amounts of money to maintain the equipment it wants to keep maintained. Were the walkaway patients paying full price? Were they a drain on UCSD financially?]

UC San Diego Health Sciences director of communications Jacqueline Carr released this statement in response to the incident:

“UC San Diego Health System underwent extensive internal and external investigations to identify the reasons that led to this tragic event...”

Fifteen months after the incident, CHHS says no fine or penalty has been issued as a result of the mishap...

Read more here.


Missing Hospital Patient's Body Found in Canyon: Officials
By Monica Garske and Dave Summers
NBCSanDiego
Jun 1, 2013

The body of a missing hospital patient was discovered by search and rescue officials in a canyon Friday evening after an extensive search.

Chula Vista resident Thomas Vera, 58, had been missing since Monday. For the last several weeks, he had been a patient at the UCSD Medical Center.

Vera was admitted to the hospital after falling down the stairs at his home. He suffered a concussion and broken collar bone, according to his family, and was awaiting surgery...


Family, Cops Search for Missing Hospital Patient
By Brandi Powell, R. Stickney and Monica Garske
NBC 7 San Diego
May 31, 2013

A Chula Vista man, suffering from a head injury and broken bones, walked away from a San Diego hospital wearing only a hospital gown four days ago.

On Friday, San Diego police officers and family members spent all day searching canyons near Mission Valley for any sign of the man who officials say was likely disoriented and confused...

His daughter Tanya said Thomas last spoke with his wife on Sunday night.

"These are his words - he was being held in a garage in Texas - we're from Texas so he's thinking he's in Texas - that people were holding him against his will and drugging him, and so he was crying and telling my mom he was very scared," she said...

The Dept. of Managed Health Care's Andrew George won't respond to a complaint--will Shelley Rouillard?

Click on image for larger view.

















June 4, 2012

Shelley Rouillard, Chief Deputy Director
Holly Pearson, Deputy Director and General Counsel
California Dept. of Managed Health Care

Re: Complaint 603896-STD01 and also two related Jan. 1, 2012 complaints [about VUCG problem]

Dear Ms. Rouillard and Ms. Pearson:

I have patiently worked my way up the chain of command at DOMHC [DMHC], but my complaints have not been acknowledged.
Is it DOMHC’s policy to ignore written complaints? If not, then please respond to this complaint. I described my problem in the attached letter to Andrew George and Carol Massey-McCants, but I received no response. My complaint is now threefold:
(1) the original complaint about Kaiser;
(2) the failure of DOMHC to respond adequately to the Kaiser complaint;
(3) the failure of DOMHC to respond to my complaint about DOMHC.
Yours truly,
Maura Larkins

Sandy Santiago of CalPERS health benefits office directs me to call "hot horny girls"

CalPERS really loves coming up with pranks to fool members who are seeking help with health problems! First it was a fake 800 number to which I was directed to send faxes. It turned out it wasn’t even a fax number, and none of the faxes went through. Thank goodness I started faxing the day before my deadline for filing! I got it straightened out on time.

Sandy Santiago sent me a January 4, 2012 letter in which she directed me to call (888) 466 4000. This number directed me to call 1 800 834 TALK.

This is what Sandy Santiago apparently wanted me to hear:

“Hey, there, sexy guy. Welcome to an exciting new way to go live one-on-one with hot horny girls waiting right now to talk to you. Lie back, baby, relax! And get ready to meet real local students, housewives and working girls from all over the country. Hundreds of hot girls! Call free all day and night ‘cause we love nasty talk as much as you do. Hot amateur voice and personals for just 99 cents per minute… or live one-on-one talk with a nasty girl who’ll do anything you want for just $2.99 per minute!...”

January 12, 2012 UPDATE

I tried to fax a response to Sandy Santiago, but I couldn't get through at the (916) 795 1513 fax line. So I called CalPERS Customer Service at (888) 225 7377. What followed was interesting, as is always the case when one calls CalPERS.

Here's a letter I sent to CalPERS about what happened today:

To:
“Leeanne”
Sandy Santiago
Sandy Santiago’s superior at CalPERS

From:
Maura Larkins

Please consider the following to be a complaint and a request. I am requesting information on how to appeal Sandy Santiago’s bizarre decision expressed in her letter of January 4, 2012. In that letter she claimed that my complaint (that X-rays were not viewed by my doctors) was an administrative matter, not a health coverage issue. Her subordinate Salindra explained to me that Kaiser discharged its duties when it took the X-rays, and it had no obligation to view the X-rays or provide treatment for health problems revealed by the X-rays. In her letter, Ms. Santiago purportedly provided a CalPERS number for me to call, but it turned out to be a link to a “hot horny girls” phone sex line. Leeanne claimed today that she could not see Sandy Santiago’s letter on her computer. Anyone on the planet can easily see Ms. Santiago’s letter by Googling “CalPERS + Sandy + Santiago.” The first item that pops up in the results is my “Thank Heaven for Insurance Companies” blog featuring a scanned copy of the letter. Please also consider this letter to be a complaint about the unprofessional treatment, extending to outright sabotage, that I have received from Sandy Santiago and Customer Service. I have been given fake numbers to call and fax, and I have repeatedly received false information or no information at all. I request a response from Sandy Santiago’s superior.

Here is what happened today:

I called CalPERS and said, “I want to appeal a CalPERS rejection of my complaint regarding Health Benefits.”

CalPERS employee Leeanne put me on hold for several minutes while she “checked my account.”

She came back and said, “It looks like a letter was sent out on the 5th.”

I said yes, I had received the letter from Sandy Santiago. “How do I appeal Sandy Santiago’s decision?”

Sandy Santiago had opined that Kaiser Permanente had not violated its contract to provide health care for CalPERS members and families because once X-rays are taken, there is no obligation to allow Emergency Rooms doctors or other doctors to look at the X-rays or to treat the patient for problems revealed by the X-rays. The fact that Kaiser had taken X-rays was enough. Treatment is not required by the CalPERS contract with Kaiser!?! CalPERS often speaks of Kaiser as its “business partner.” I guess it’s a very, very close partnership.

Leeanne apparently did not want to tell me how to appeal Sandy Santiago’s decision. She said, “Just send in the correspondence you originally sent to the Health Plan, and the response you received from the Health Plan.”

“But I already did that.”

“When did you do that?” Leeanne spoke in a challenging, oppositional tone of voice.

“Around December 22.”

“Hold on a second. (Pause.) It’s not letting me view the information. Did you receive a response?”

“Yes, Leeanne, I received the response that you looked up a minute ago.” (Had she forgotten that she had just told me that CalPERS sent a response on the 5th?)

“I did not see the actual letter or the verbiage (pronounced “verbage”) in the letter.”

“Verbage?” I asked.

“Yes, verbage,” she said.

(I later looked up “verbiage” and found at DailyWritingTips.com that “three-syllable verbiage /vur bee ij/” is so frequently pronounced without its “i” that the non-standard mispronunciation is appearing in some dictionaries. I must bow to Leeanne for being on the cutting edge of our changing language.)

Leeanne then started speaking quickly, in a winding-things-up tone of voice, “That’s all I can tell you. There's nothing I can do--"

I could tell she was about to hang up on me.

“I want to speak to your supervisor.”

“Not a problem,” she said.

But apparently it was a problem. She hung up on me.

Kaiser fired Dr. Moran for complaining about Hamid Safari, the doctor who killed two babies

Kaiser retaliation for patient advocacy

Kaiser fired the Chief of the OB/GYN Department for complaining about a doctor who has since become notorious for killing babies. At the same time, Kaiser offered $2 million to the baby-killing doctor to resign.

Dr. Gilbert Kenneth Moran's lawsuit says he was fired for complaining about "Dr. X," whose negligence resulted in three deaths at Kaiser in Fresno, which is where Dr. Hamid Safari worked when his notorious misbehavior occurred.

The lawsuit states:

...Between 2002 and 2004, while he was Chief of the OB/GYN department and oversaw the quality of care committee, petitioner complained to hospital officials about substandard patient care given by a doctor identified as Dr. X. The physician-in-chief told petitioner to stop complaining, and dismantled the quality of care committee; he demoted and otherwise disciplined petitioner as a result of the complaints. Dr. X's negligence resulted in the death of three patients.

Petitioner was told he could work harassment-free at Kaiser-Bakersfield if he resigned his partnership, returned to employee status, and accepted a reduction in pay and job security; he was told he would likely be promoted to partnership again after one year, rather than the usual three years. Petitioner agreed to this. His first day of work for SCPMG in Bakersfield was January 8, 2007. He subsequently filed a lawsuit alleging retaliation for patient advocacy; that suit was resolved on June 29, 2009. Petitioner was later told he would not be promoted to partner at Kaiser-Bakersfield; he was terminated effective February 22, 2010...


Hamid Safari: Kaiser tried to bribe baby-killing doctor
Kaiser Permanente Thrive Exposed
March 8th, 2008

[How do you like that? Only at Kaiser can you kill two babies and endanger countless others, only to be handed $2 million of member money to quietly resign. The pattern should be glaringly obvious by now. Kaiser always tries to lie and buy its way out of a scandal, and only does the right thing when its malfeasance becomes a media event. Note that even after Safari turned down the settlement, Kaiser still would have declined to suspend him if only CMS hadn't rejected the first plan of correction (pdf).]

From the Fresno Bee:
Kaiser doctor rejected a deal
Hospital offered beleaguered Safari $2 million to resign.
By Tracy Correa

Three months before Kaiser Permanente suspended a Fresno physician at the center of a state investigation into the deaths of two babies, the hospital offered him $2 million to resign.

Dr. Hamid Safari, who treated high-risk pregnancies, said he refused the Nov. 28 offer because he wanted to continue working and believes he has done nothing wrong.

“I have spent my life to be a perinatologist and help patients, mothers and babies. The money was not my intention or my goal in life,” Safari said.

Kaiser officials acknowledged that they have discussed a settlement with Safari, but would not confirm the $2 million figure. The hospital suspended the doctor last week.

“We have considered many alternatives over time regarding Dr. Safari leaving the organization, including settlement, because we believed it was in everyone’s best interest,” Linda Monte, interim senior vice president and area manager for Kaiser’s Fresno hospital, said in a written statement.

The doctor and his lawyer, Stephen Schear, said Kaiser buckled under the pressure of bad publicity. They also criticized Kaiser for telling reporters about the suspension.

Schear said Safari was not interested in taking any amount of money in exchange for his career.

“Our counteroffer was to sit down and work things out so he could continue to treat patients at Kaiser Fresno,” he said.

Safari said a Kaiser representative showed up at his home about 5 p.m. on Feb. 29 and handed over a letter stating that he was suspended, effective immediately. He had been off that day for his deposition in a lawsuit filed by two Kaiser doctors who said they were retaliated against by hospital administration for questioning Safari’s competence.

The suspension followed months of criticism and public pressure on the doctor and Kaiser Permanente since details of the deaths — in 2004 and 2005 — became public late last year.

In September, the California Medical Board accused Safari of gross negligence — charges that could lead to loss of his California medical license. A hearing is pending.

In 2004, Safari waited more than three hours before performing a Caesarean section on a patient even though the baby was in distress, according to the accusation. The baby girl, who was deprived of oxygen, died 10 months later.

The other case occurred in 2005, when Safari allegedly severed the spinal cord of a baby boy, a twin, in what has been described by investigators in documents as a brutal delivery.

Medical staff and nurses have said they had raised questions about Safari’s competence but hospital administration failed to act.

Drs. Gilbert Moran and Robert Rusche are now suing Kaiser for retaliating against them after they complained about Safari.

Safari, in turn, accuses Moran — the former head of the OB/GYN department — and Rusche of complaining to the state medical board as part of a vendetta against him. He said they did so after he complained to superiors that one of the doctors was abusing his power on a quality review committee to go after doctors he didn’t like.

In January, federal health officials issued a critical 68-page report following an investigation into the situation. The report suggested that if Safari had been monitored more closely, the deaths might have been prevented.

Days later, Susan Ryan, the hospital’s then-top administrator, stepped down.

Schear said the bad publicity had become too much and Kaiser was determined to get rid of Safari. He also said that even though the doctor is suspended, he is collecting his Kaiser paycheck and is still entitled to due process, involving hearings and appeals, that can take months or years.

Schear said the $2 million settlement offer was an attempt to quickly disassociate the hospital from Safari and shortcut that process.

Schear provided The Bee a copy of a Nov. 28 letter from a Los Angeles law firm he said represented Kaiser. He blanked out all but one passage in the letter, which reads, “Kaiser will pay Dr. Safari $2 million, provided Dr. Safari complies with all conditions set forth herein.”

Schear said the letter also set forth conditions, including a confidentiality agreement and a pledge that Safari wouldn’t sue Kaiser.

“The essence was, you leave and we give you the money,” Schear said.

He said $2 million was a starting point and that the offer came “with indications they would pay him significantly more than that if he immediately resigned.”

Schear said he believes Kaiser moved to suspend Safari because it doesn’t think the medical board will end up revoking his license when all the facts come out.

“They just decided to throw him overboard,” Schear said.

Safari said he has performed well in recent months and that there have been no reports of any problems since 2005. He said his patient satisfaction rates are the highest they have ever been and only eight Kaiser patients have asked to be reassigned to another doctor.

“I think the action [suspension] was taken because he’s performing too well and building up a track record,” Schear said. “The longer he goes without problems, the harder it is to get rid of him.”

Safari now serves primarily as a consultant in high-risk births. Kaiser restricted Safari in July 2005 from performing vaginal deliveries and made the restrictions permanent in April 2007.

Filing a complaint with Kaiser Permanente Member Services

1 800 464 4000 Member Services Call Center

(* See below if your Kaiser email isn't working.)

Kaiser Permanente makes it hard to get through, but it's actually easy to file a complaint once you get to talk to a human being. You simply have to ignore all the little tricks they use to get you to hang up.

(Actually, sometimes you get an unhelpful person on the line. In that case, just call back and get a different person. One employee flat-out refused to take my complaint. I asked to talk to her supervisor, who was very helpful. One woman told me she would only take complaints going back three months. Usually they say six months. But if it's a continuing problem, you should describe recent events, then you would probably need to go back and explain the beginning of the problem.)

(Also, you can always fill out a grievance form. )

When I called Kaiser Permanente Member Services call center today, the recording said there were "extemely high volumes and wait times." Not true!

The truth was, I waited less than a minute to talk to someone once I had gone through all the menus.

Also, don't pay any attention when the recording tells you that you have punched in an incorrect Medical Record Number and 4-digit birthdate (month and year). Just ignore it. They are trying to get you to hang up and go away.

After you punch in your Medical Record Number and birthdate, there will be another menu to listen to. Making a complaint with Member Services won't be one of the options, but stay on the line. There will be a pause in the recorded menu making you think there are no more options. But if you keep holding, you will be told to press "0" to talk to someone to make your complaint.

The toll-free number is 1 800 464 4000.


KAISER PERMANENTE EMAIL NOT WORKING?

When I called Member Services to report that my Kaiser email wasn't working, Kaiser got me to hang up by means of a recorded message that suggested that the problem could be solved by clicking on a certain button. Not so. I believe that the message was just a trick to get people to go away.

I called back and reported the problem, and lo and behold, my email was working again within a few hours. Complaining can be very effective!

Kaiser Permanente to pay $11.4 million total for retaliating against doctor who complained about patient care

I have been shocked at the unwillingness of Kaiser Permanente to make any effort to remediate problems that are brought to its attention. The people I have complained to have immediately thrown up a stone wall. Will this verdict cause Kaiser to respond differently to complaints? Will the persons responsible be fired? I doubt it.

Jury awards $7.5M more to former Kaiser doctor
Mercury News
The Associated Press
12/11/2008

A Los Angeles jury has ordered Kaiser Permanante to pay $7.5 million in punitive damages to a radiologist who was forced to resign from one the company's hospitals in 2006 after complaining about patient care.

The jury's decision on Thursday means Kaiser owes Dr. Michael Martinucci a combined $11.4 million. The same panel on Monday awarded the doctor $3.9 million in compensatory damages.

Kaiser says it will appeal Thursday's decision, saying it was "shocked and disappointed by the verdict."

Martinucci sued Kaiser after leaving the company, claiming he was forced to quit because he complained about work standards at the Hollywood hospital.

Martinucci was hired at Kaiser in 2003 and resigned three years later after his supervisor and a human resources staffer accused him of being racist and making sexual advances toward a male technologist.