Class Action lawsuit filed against Kaiser over mental health care wait times
By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen
Times-Herald
10/25/2013
A lawsuit served at Kaiser Permanente's Oakland headquarters Thursday alleges that Kaiser Foundation Health Plan facilities, including Vallejo's, routinely deny its members timely access to mental health services.
Kaiser officials call the suit a ploy in ongoing contract negotiations.
The Oakland-based law firm of Siegel LeWitter Malkani that works closely with the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) -- which represents Kaiser's mental health professionals and optical workers -- filed the suit earlier this month on behalf of "three named plaintiffs and thousands of other Kaiser members who have been harmed" by this alleged practice, attorney Jonathan Siegel said Thursday.
The union represents some 70 members at Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center. The firm has sued Kaiser before, Siegel said.
Kaiser officials called the suit the "NUHW's latest attempt to use inaccurate claims about our mental health care services to apply pressure in their protracted labor negotiations with Kaiser Permanente."
The union's actions do "nothing to further the negotiations that should be taking place at the table," they said.
The lawsuit alleges that Kaiser routinely violates state law by refusing to provide critical mental health services to its members within the time frame set by law.
"As a result, Kaiser members have been denied urgent services, forced to wait for long periods of time to receive needed services, discouraged from seeking services altogether, or compelled to incur out-of-pocket expenses for treatment outside of the Kaiser system," according to the suit.
The lead plaintiff, Point Richmond resident Susan Futterman, said her husband, Fred Paroutaud, killed himself after "desperate" requests for an urgent mental health appointment were delayed until his psychiatrist returned from vacation.
Los Angeles area plaintiff Megan Mortensen wound up seeking an urgent mental health appointment outside the system after Kaiser allegedly "refused" her request for a timely appointment after the loss of her brother. The third plaintiff, Acianita Lucero of Oakland, allegedly "made repeated requests for Kaiser to provide her with an urgent mental health appointment but Kaiser refused to see her within the 48 hours required by law," according to the suit.
The suit follows a report from earlier this year by the California Department of Managed Health Care which suggested Kaiser needed to reduce mental health appointment wait times. Kaiser was fined $ 4 million -- the second largest fine issued by the Department -- and issued a Cease and Desist Order to correct the problems, Siegel said.
Kaiser officials say the report did not fault Kaiser's mental health care quality or member's ability to obtain urgent or emergency mental health care.
"What was identified in the DMHC survey were some areas where our non-urgent appointment wait times and data tracking needed improvement," officials said. "We took the findings seriously, have submitted a corrective action plan to the DMHC, and have worked to correct the issues identified in the survey."
The class action lawsuit seeks compensatory and statutory damages for class members as well as an injunction requiring Kaiser to comply with the law, Siegel said.
"We're suing for Kaiser to clean up there act and provide mental health services to their clients that complies with the law," he said. "And we want damage compensation for the tens of thousands of Kaiser members who have been victimized by this."
Showing posts with label mental health care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental health care. Show all posts
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Patients who were harmed can join class action suit against Kaiser Permanente
Chance to participate:
On October 2, 2013 a class action suit was filed in Alameda County, California - alleging denial of timely and/or appropriate care.
Filed by Siegel, Lewitter, Malkani of Oakland, California
Contact Information: Latika Malkani
Phone Number: 510-452-5000
1939 Harrison Street, Suite 307
Oakland, California 94612
California Class Action Case RG13697775
Filing found here for your viewing: http://legalstuff.kaiserpapers.org/pdfs/Futterman-v-KFHP.pdf
[The complaint is interesting reading, discussing the investigation of the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC).]
This suit consists of all current and former Kaiser members who have either been denied access to mental health services, dissuaded from pursuing mental health services, provided with delayed access to mental health services and/or provided with inaccurate and confusing information from Kaiser regarding mental health services available to them from October 2, 2009 to the present.
(Violations of Business and Professions Code, Section 17200 et seq., Violations of the Unruh Civil Rights Act, Breach of the Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing, Breach of Contract)
--Vickie Travis
http://kaiserpapers.org
On October 2, 2013 a class action suit was filed in Alameda County, California - alleging denial of timely and/or appropriate care.
Filed by Siegel, Lewitter, Malkani of Oakland, California
Contact Information: Latika Malkani
Phone Number: 510-452-5000
1939 Harrison Street, Suite 307
Oakland, California 94612
California Class Action Case RG13697775
Filing found here for your viewing: http://legalstuff.kaiserpapers.org/pdfs/Futterman-v-KFHP.pdf
[The complaint is interesting reading, discussing the investigation of the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC).]
This suit consists of all current and former Kaiser members who have either been denied access to mental health services, dissuaded from pursuing mental health services, provided with delayed access to mental health services and/or provided with inaccurate and confusing information from Kaiser regarding mental health services available to them from October 2, 2009 to the present.
(Violations of Business and Professions Code, Section 17200 et seq., Violations of the Unruh Civil Rights Act, Breach of the Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing, Breach of Contract)
--Vickie Travis
http://kaiserpapers.org
Thursday, June 27, 2013
State fines Kaiser $4 million for mental health violations
The California Department of Managed Health Care ignores almost all complaints from Kaiser patients, but this complaint came from Kaiser providers, so the DOMHC couldn't look the other way.California officials have fined healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente $4 million for problems related to patient access to mental health services.
State fines Kaiser $4 million for mental health violations
The California Department of Managed Health Care fined Kaiser Permanente $4 million Tuesday related to problems it found with patient access to mental health care.
Los Angeles Times
By Chad Terhune
June 25, 2013
California officials have fined healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente $4 million for problems related to patient access to mental health services.
The fine announced Tuesday stems from deficiencies the California Department of Managed Health Care identified in March that were found during a routine medical survey. This marks the agency's second-largest enforcement action after a $10 million fine against Anthem Blue Cross in 2008 related to improper policyholder cancellations.
"The Department's actions are a result of both the seriousness of the deficiencies and the failure of Kaiser to promptly correct them," said Brent Barnhart, director of the Department of Managed Health Care.
"The Department is taking this action to ensure that Kaiser promptly corrects these deficiencies and provides its patients with the mental healthcare promised to them by their health plan," Barnhart added.
State officials said Kaiser's problems covered a variety of issues affecting patients. It found that Kaiser needed to better track and monitor the availability of providers.
The health plan needs to ensure that appointments are offered in a timely manner and improvements to care are made when deficiencies are identified, according to the state investigation.
Regulators also said that Kaiser's educational materials and its "frequently asked questions" included inaccurate information that could dissuade a patient from seeking care.
John Nelson, a spokesman for Kaiser, said each of the state's findings "has already been corrected or is very far along toward resolution."
In light of that, the company said the "amount of the proposed penalty is unwarranted and excessive."
Agency officials said they would conduct a follow-up survey in October to ensure Kaiser has corrected the deficiencies and is complying with the law.
State fines Kaiser $4 million for mental health violations
The California Department of Managed Health Care fined Kaiser Permanente $4 million Tuesday related to problems it found with patient access to mental health care.
Los Angeles Times
By Chad Terhune
June 25, 2013
California officials have fined healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente $4 million for problems related to patient access to mental health services.
The fine announced Tuesday stems from deficiencies the California Department of Managed Health Care identified in March that were found during a routine medical survey. This marks the agency's second-largest enforcement action after a $10 million fine against Anthem Blue Cross in 2008 related to improper policyholder cancellations.
"The Department's actions are a result of both the seriousness of the deficiencies and the failure of Kaiser to promptly correct them," said Brent Barnhart, director of the Department of Managed Health Care.
"The Department is taking this action to ensure that Kaiser promptly corrects these deficiencies and provides its patients with the mental healthcare promised to them by their health plan," Barnhart added.
State officials said Kaiser's problems covered a variety of issues affecting patients. It found that Kaiser needed to better track and monitor the availability of providers.
The health plan needs to ensure that appointments are offered in a timely manner and improvements to care are made when deficiencies are identified, according to the state investigation.
Regulators also said that Kaiser's educational materials and its "frequently asked questions" included inaccurate information that could dissuade a patient from seeking care.
John Nelson, a spokesman for Kaiser, said each of the state's findings "has already been corrected or is very far along toward resolution."
In light of that, the company said the "amount of the proposed penalty is unwarranted and excessive."
Agency officials said they would conduct a follow-up survey in October to ensure Kaiser has corrected the deficiencies and is complying with the law.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
An American James Bond and a killer bag lady--and doctors from Stanford and U W
I recommend clicking on the title of the article below to read the entire story. It's too amazing to describe in a nutshell, and it is much longer than the clips I've provided. Along with evil doctors, it involves Ronald Reagan's CIA director William Casey, a young Chuck Schumer as investigator, and the remarkable career of a suave banker from Transylvania. It even involves the company that bankrolls Glenn Beck.
James Bond and the killer bag lady
New clues and a powerful Wall St. skeptic challenge the official story of CIA financier Nick Deak's brutal murder
BY MARK AMES AND ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK
Salon.com
DEC 2, 2012
On the morning of Nov. 19, 1985, a wild-eyed and disheveled homeless woman entered the reception room at the legendary Wall Street firm of Deak-Perera. Carrying a backpack with an aluminum baseball bat sticking out of the top, her face partially hidden by shocks of greasy, gray-streaked hair falling out from under a wool cap, she demanded to speak with the firm’s 80-year-old founder and president, Nicholas Deak.
The 44-year-old drifter’s name was Lois Lang...
New revelations about Lois Lang’s transformation from homecoming queen to homeless killer provide excellent grist for substantive speculation, if not the basis for officially reopening the Deak case.
A standout college athlete with an M.A. from the University of Illinois, Lang married in the mid-’60s and took a job coaching the University of California-Santa Barbara women’s tennis and fencing teams. An old U.C.-Santa Barbara yearbook shows coach Lang standing tall in a team photo. It was around this time that she began losing her mind, seeing “fakes” all around her, strangers whom she accused of pretending to be family members, her husband and, at an open-casket funeral, her mother’s corpse.
In 1970, the university declined to renew her coaching contract. Lang and her husband soon divorced. Her life quickly became a blur. Lang complained of “amnesia” and said that her ex-husband’s business partner moved her into an apartment in Mountain View, Calif., where she lived on “grants” and “took flying lessons.” (Moffett Field Naval Base and NASA’s Ames Research Center are located there). She told psychiatrists in 1985 that this business partner, or his “fakes,” took her to Deak’s offices at 29 Broadway in 1971. She said that “friends” taught her marksmanship at firing ranges. In August 1975, records show that Lang was discovered naked and catatonic in a Santa Clara motel room. (Neither Lang’s ex-husband nor his “business partner” could be located. Lang, who is imprisoned at a federal facility two hours north of New York City, did not respond to interview requests.)
Police responding to the motel room took Lang to nearby Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. For the next month, she was put under the care of Dr. Frederick Melges, a psychiatrist associated with the Stanford Research Institute. One of Dr. Melges’ main areas of research: drug-aided hypnosis. A few years after Lang was put in Melges’ care, the New York Times exposed the Stanford Research Institute as a center for CIA research into “brain-washing” and “mind-control” experiments in which unwitting subjects were dosed with hallucinogenic drugs and subjected to hypnosis. Melges, who died in 1988, is today remembered in the field for his research on the relationship between perceptions of time and mental illness.
Congressional hearings subsequently uncovered a large network of top-secret CIA-funded psychological warfare programs grouped loosely under the project name MK-ULTRA. These programs today sound like absurd cloak-and-dagger relics of “Twilight Zone”-inflected Cold War hysteria. But the people running these programs, which continued until at least 1979, were often leading researchers backed by the U.S. government. Enormous resources were committed to the study of how human behavior might be controlled for the purpose of interrogation and the creation of “programmed” assassins and couriers. In a detailed roundup of MK-ULRA-related operations, Psychology Today explained that the CIA “conducted or sponsored at least 419 secret drug-testing projects” at “86 United States and Canadian hospitals, prisons, universities, and military installations,” and that “by the agency’s own admission, many [experimental subjects] were ‘unwitting’.”
The Stanford Research Institute received CIA funding, and Dr. Melges published work about using drugs and hypnosis to create “disassociative states,” i.e., induced schizophrenia. One of Melges’ partners on these experiments was a doctor named Leo E. Hollister, who first dosed Ken Kesey with LSD as part of an Army experiment in 1960. He later admitted to author John Marks that he conducted drug research for the CIA. Marks’ 1979 book, “The Search for the Manchurian Candidate,” contains numerous such revelations about other government researchers.
In other words, the doctor who cared for Lang in Santa Clara was a senior figure at one of the CIA’s top institutional grantees. He worked side-by-side with a self-identified CIA collaborator, and conducted research into the kind of drug-induced behavior modification that the agency is known to have funded.
Following her release from Melges’ care, Lang began a long period as a drifter, leaving behind a record typical of such a life: petty crimes, arrests, stints in and out of psychiatric hospitals. Her only known job was at the once famously mobbed-up Harrah’s casino on the Nevada-California border (where Frank Sinatra’s son was kidnapped in 1963). By the early 1980s, Lang drifted north to her birthplace and spent her last free years lurking around the University of Washington campus wearing a feathered Robin Hood cap. Occasionally she was arrested and sent to one of the nearby mental hospitals before making her way back again. A local police officer told the New York Times after her arrest in 1985 that Lang “usually had money,” despite roaming “the [university] campus in unkempt clothes, usually wearing a green felt Tyrolean-style hat.” Once the police found more than $800 in her possession.
As with Stanford, the university employed a military-linked behavioral psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Dudley, who later became infamous for carrying out experiments in behavior modification. Dudley taught there from the 1960s through the early 1990s, and also worked at nearby mental institutions where Lang was periodically committed. The landmark lawsuit that ended Dudley’s career revealed that Dudley’s hobby was taking patients brought to him for lesser mental illnesses, pumping them full of drugs, hypnotizing them, and trying to turn them into killers.
We know this thanks to a suit brought by the family of Stephen Drummond, who entered Dudley’s care in 1989 for autism treatment. He was returned to his family in 1992 suffering from severe catatonia. According to lawsuit testimony, Dudley shot Drummond up with sodium amytal and hypnotized him with the intention of “erasing” a portion of his brain and turning him into an assassin. When Drummond’s mother confronted Dudley, the mad scientist threatened to have her killed, claiming he worked for the CIA. Dudley was arrested soon after the confrontation in a local hotel where he had shacked up to “treat” a suicidal 15-year-old drifter. Dudley had given the boy sodium amytal and several other drugs, hypnotized him, and convinced him that he was part of a secret army of assassins. Police were called in when the boy threatened hotel staff with a .44 caliber handgun. Not long after, Dudley died in state custody and his estate was forced to pay the largest psychotherapy negligence lawsuit in history. During the trial, it emerged that Dudley had possibly subjected hundreds of victims to similar experiments. Lang was not mentioned...
James Bond and the killer bag lady
New clues and a powerful Wall St. skeptic challenge the official story of CIA financier Nick Deak's brutal murder
BY MARK AMES AND ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK
Salon.com
DEC 2, 2012
On the morning of Nov. 19, 1985, a wild-eyed and disheveled homeless woman entered the reception room at the legendary Wall Street firm of Deak-Perera. Carrying a backpack with an aluminum baseball bat sticking out of the top, her face partially hidden by shocks of greasy, gray-streaked hair falling out from under a wool cap, she demanded to speak with the firm’s 80-year-old founder and president, Nicholas Deak.
The 44-year-old drifter’s name was Lois Lang...
New revelations about Lois Lang’s transformation from homecoming queen to homeless killer provide excellent grist for substantive speculation, if not the basis for officially reopening the Deak case.
A standout college athlete with an M.A. from the University of Illinois, Lang married in the mid-’60s and took a job coaching the University of California-Santa Barbara women’s tennis and fencing teams. An old U.C.-Santa Barbara yearbook shows coach Lang standing tall in a team photo. It was around this time that she began losing her mind, seeing “fakes” all around her, strangers whom she accused of pretending to be family members, her husband and, at an open-casket funeral, her mother’s corpse.
In 1970, the university declined to renew her coaching contract. Lang and her husband soon divorced. Her life quickly became a blur. Lang complained of “amnesia” and said that her ex-husband’s business partner moved her into an apartment in Mountain View, Calif., where she lived on “grants” and “took flying lessons.” (Moffett Field Naval Base and NASA’s Ames Research Center are located there). She told psychiatrists in 1985 that this business partner, or his “fakes,” took her to Deak’s offices at 29 Broadway in 1971. She said that “friends” taught her marksmanship at firing ranges. In August 1975, records show that Lang was discovered naked and catatonic in a Santa Clara motel room. (Neither Lang’s ex-husband nor his “business partner” could be located. Lang, who is imprisoned at a federal facility two hours north of New York City, did not respond to interview requests.)
Police responding to the motel room took Lang to nearby Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. For the next month, she was put under the care of Dr. Frederick Melges, a psychiatrist associated with the Stanford Research Institute. One of Dr. Melges’ main areas of research: drug-aided hypnosis. A few years after Lang was put in Melges’ care, the New York Times exposed the Stanford Research Institute as a center for CIA research into “brain-washing” and “mind-control” experiments in which unwitting subjects were dosed with hallucinogenic drugs and subjected to hypnosis. Melges, who died in 1988, is today remembered in the field for his research on the relationship between perceptions of time and mental illness.
Congressional hearings subsequently uncovered a large network of top-secret CIA-funded psychological warfare programs grouped loosely under the project name MK-ULTRA. These programs today sound like absurd cloak-and-dagger relics of “Twilight Zone”-inflected Cold War hysteria. But the people running these programs, which continued until at least 1979, were often leading researchers backed by the U.S. government. Enormous resources were committed to the study of how human behavior might be controlled for the purpose of interrogation and the creation of “programmed” assassins and couriers. In a detailed roundup of MK-ULRA-related operations, Psychology Today explained that the CIA “conducted or sponsored at least 419 secret drug-testing projects” at “86 United States and Canadian hospitals, prisons, universities, and military installations,” and that “by the agency’s own admission, many [experimental subjects] were ‘unwitting’.”
The Stanford Research Institute received CIA funding, and Dr. Melges published work about using drugs and hypnosis to create “disassociative states,” i.e., induced schizophrenia. One of Melges’ partners on these experiments was a doctor named Leo E. Hollister, who first dosed Ken Kesey with LSD as part of an Army experiment in 1960. He later admitted to author John Marks that he conducted drug research for the CIA. Marks’ 1979 book, “The Search for the Manchurian Candidate,” contains numerous such revelations about other government researchers.
In other words, the doctor who cared for Lang in Santa Clara was a senior figure at one of the CIA’s top institutional grantees. He worked side-by-side with a self-identified CIA collaborator, and conducted research into the kind of drug-induced behavior modification that the agency is known to have funded.
Following her release from Melges’ care, Lang began a long period as a drifter, leaving behind a record typical of such a life: petty crimes, arrests, stints in and out of psychiatric hospitals. Her only known job was at the once famously mobbed-up Harrah’s casino on the Nevada-California border (where Frank Sinatra’s son was kidnapped in 1963). By the early 1980s, Lang drifted north to her birthplace and spent her last free years lurking around the University of Washington campus wearing a feathered Robin Hood cap. Occasionally she was arrested and sent to one of the nearby mental hospitals before making her way back again. A local police officer told the New York Times after her arrest in 1985 that Lang “usually had money,” despite roaming “the [university] campus in unkempt clothes, usually wearing a green felt Tyrolean-style hat.” Once the police found more than $800 in her possession.
As with Stanford, the university employed a military-linked behavioral psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Dudley, who later became infamous for carrying out experiments in behavior modification. Dudley taught there from the 1960s through the early 1990s, and also worked at nearby mental institutions where Lang was periodically committed. The landmark lawsuit that ended Dudley’s career revealed that Dudley’s hobby was taking patients brought to him for lesser mental illnesses, pumping them full of drugs, hypnotizing them, and trying to turn them into killers.
We know this thanks to a suit brought by the family of Stephen Drummond, who entered Dudley’s care in 1989 for autism treatment. He was returned to his family in 1992 suffering from severe catatonia. According to lawsuit testimony, Dudley shot Drummond up with sodium amytal and hypnotized him with the intention of “erasing” a portion of his brain and turning him into an assassin. When Drummond’s mother confronted Dudley, the mad scientist threatened to have her killed, claiming he worked for the CIA. Dudley was arrested soon after the confrontation in a local hotel where he had shacked up to “treat” a suicidal 15-year-old drifter. Dudley had given the boy sodium amytal and several other drugs, hypnotized him, and convinced him that he was part of a secret army of assassins. Police were called in when the boy threatened hotel staff with a .44 caliber handgun. Not long after, Dudley died in state custody and his estate was forced to pay the largest psychotherapy negligence lawsuit in history. During the trial, it emerged that Dudley had possibly subjected hundreds of victims to similar experiments. Lang was not mentioned...
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Kaiser Permanente whistle-blower Emily Ryan from Roseville, California
My name is Emily Ryan. I'm a Courage Campaign member and psychiatric social worker for Kaiser Permanente in Roseville, California. Recently I came forward, along with several colleagues, to blow the whistle on Kaiser's illegal and morally inexcusable mental health policies.
We've risked our careers to contribute to “Care Delayed, Care Denied” a report by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which was featured in USA Today¹ and The Huffington Post.² Now, Kaiser will use its army of lobbyists and PR flacks to try to stop an investigation. This "non-profit" corporation has made more than $5.4 billion in the last three years and pays its CEO a salary of $9 million a year. Unless Governor Brown's Department of Managed Health Care pursues an investigation, Kaiser's billion dollar spin machine will succeed in silencing our voices.
We need your help. Please click here to demand Governor Brown start an investigation.
If you or anyone in your family suffers from mental illness or acute emotional pain, you know how damaging it can be. If they have Kaiser, they're likely to have an experience like Timm Sinclair, who told us,
My mother, a Kaiser member of 20 years, is 77 years old and has Parkinson's. She also suffers from chronic recurrent depression and severe anxiety disorder. The difficulties in getting her psychological and psychiatric needs met at Kaiser have been distressing for her and for me. Along with a revolving cast of doctors and therapists we have encountered lengthy delays of up to three months. I find it inconceivable that an organization that is supposedly dedicated to ensuring that their members 'Thrive' would allow this to happen.
Join us to demand Governor Brown direct the Department of Managed Health Care to investigate Kaiser!
Kaiser puts profits before patients. This year, they raised rates an average of 9.5% and are planning another hike -- their second in six months -- this January, but they refuse to hire enough staff to serve their patients adequately. Our report -- based a survey of over 300 Kaiser mental health professionals practicing at 57 Kaiser facilities in Northern and Southern California -- revealed the following:
• 90% report there is insufficient staffing at their clinic;
• patients, including those suffering from major depression and thoughts of suicide, are frequently forced to wait four weeks or longer for return appointments, despite California law requiring they be seen within ten business days;
• Kaiser falsifies patient scheduling records to conceal these delays from state regulators;
• and Kaiser often funnels patients into group therapy even when clinicians believe that individual therapy would be more effective.
Please ask the Governor to stand up for Timm, his mother, and the thousands of patients who rely on the country's largest HMO for their mental health services.
Emily Ryan
Kaiser Permanente psychiatric social worker and Courage Campaign member
1. USA Today
2. Huffington Post
We've risked our careers to contribute to “Care Delayed, Care Denied” a report by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which was featured in USA Today¹ and The Huffington Post.² Now, Kaiser will use its army of lobbyists and PR flacks to try to stop an investigation. This "non-profit" corporation has made more than $5.4 billion in the last three years and pays its CEO a salary of $9 million a year. Unless Governor Brown's Department of Managed Health Care pursues an investigation, Kaiser's billion dollar spin machine will succeed in silencing our voices.
We need your help. Please click here to demand Governor Brown start an investigation.
If you or anyone in your family suffers from mental illness or acute emotional pain, you know how damaging it can be. If they have Kaiser, they're likely to have an experience like Timm Sinclair, who told us,
My mother, a Kaiser member of 20 years, is 77 years old and has Parkinson's. She also suffers from chronic recurrent depression and severe anxiety disorder. The difficulties in getting her psychological and psychiatric needs met at Kaiser have been distressing for her and for me. Along with a revolving cast of doctors and therapists we have encountered lengthy delays of up to three months. I find it inconceivable that an organization that is supposedly dedicated to ensuring that their members 'Thrive' would allow this to happen.
Join us to demand Governor Brown direct the Department of Managed Health Care to investigate Kaiser!
Kaiser puts profits before patients. This year, they raised rates an average of 9.5% and are planning another hike -- their second in six months -- this January, but they refuse to hire enough staff to serve their patients adequately. Our report -- based a survey of over 300 Kaiser mental health professionals practicing at 57 Kaiser facilities in Northern and Southern California -- revealed the following:
• 90% report there is insufficient staffing at their clinic;
• patients, including those suffering from major depression and thoughts of suicide, are frequently forced to wait four weeks or longer for return appointments, despite California law requiring they be seen within ten business days;
• Kaiser falsifies patient scheduling records to conceal these delays from state regulators;
• and Kaiser often funnels patients into group therapy even when clinicians believe that individual therapy would be more effective.
Please ask the Governor to stand up for Timm, his mother, and the thousands of patients who rely on the country's largest HMO for their mental health services.
Emily Ryan
Kaiser Permanente psychiatric social worker and Courage Campaign member
1. USA Today
2. Huffington Post
Monday, November 14, 2011
Survey Reveals Problems With Mental Health Care At Kaiser Permanente
Who sits on the boards of those "independent rating agencies" and State of California offices that "recognize the quality" of Kaiser Permanente's mental health services? And who sits on the boards of "independent" agencies who rate other aspects of Kaiser's medicalcare? Kaiser doctors and administrators!
Survey Reveals Problems With Mental Health Care At Kaiser Permanente
November 14, 2011
By Kenny Goldberg
KPBS
SAN DIEGO — A union-backed survey of providers at Kaiser Permanente shows widespread dissatisfaction with the HMOs' mental health services. The union representing mental health professionals has been negotiating a new contract.
The National Union of Healthcare Workers surveyed more than 300 mental-health providers at Kaiser facilities in California. Many said they're not given enough time to evaluate patients, and they're not able to schedule return appointments in a timely way.
Jim Clifford has been a therapist at Kaiser's outpatient clinic in Otay Mesa for 10 years. He said mental-health care has gotten short shrift.
"We're trained to know what adequate care is and to provide it," he said. "And it's very troubling ethically to be in a position due to poor staffing not to be able to provide that. And it's been a chronic situation at Kaiser."
Clifford said Kaiser has refused to beef up staffing so that mental-health patients can get better care.
In a written statement, Kaiser officials said the quality of their mental health services has been recognized by independent rating agencies, and the state of California. The HMO said the NUHW survey was inaccurate and biased.
Long Wait Times The Norm At Kaiser Mental Health, Study Finds
Says company posting record profits while patients being denied the care they need.
Suisun City Patch
By Karina Ioffee
Nov. 15, 2011
Patients who seek mental health services at Kaiser Permanente have to wait for weeks for appointments, are routed into group therapy even when they need individual attention and are not given proper initial evaluations, according to a new report by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, that represents some 2,500 mental health clinicians.
The study is based on a survey of over 300 Kaiser mental health professionals practicing at 57 Kaiser facilities in Northern and Southern California, along with dozens of open-ended interviews with clinicians and patients.
Among its findings:
Kaiser mental health clinics are insufficiently staffed, with patients often forced to wait four weeks or longer for return appointments. That’s despite the fact that California state regulations require that patients be seen within ten business days,
Staff conduct accelerated initial patient evaluations that fall short of recommended clinical standards, which are then miscoded incorrectly in order to avoid penalties,
Patients that are funneled into group therapy even when their diagnoses call for individual therapy,
Falsified patient scheduling records that conceal appointment delays from state regulators, through practices such as "shadow" paper records and deliberately canceling and rescheduling patients' appointments while falsely attributing the cancellation to the patient.
Clinicians interviewed for the study describe a pattern of “deceptive practices by Kaiser administrators that routinely compromise the health and safety of thousands of patients suffering from emotional pain and distress in order to save the company money,” according to the report, titled “Care Delayed, Care Denied.”
Kaiser has more than 6.6 million members and is California's largest HMO. Since 2009, it has reported profits of $5.7 million and last year paid its Chief Executive Officer George Halvorson $6.7 million.
“It’s clear to us that decisions are being made from an accounting standpoint, that Kaiser’s approach to treatment is about making money for Kaiser and basically denying patients the treatment they deserve,” said Jim Clifford, a therapist for Kaiser in San Diego.
Click here to listen to interviews with Kaiser mental healthcare providers and patients
In an issued statement, Kaiser said the findings of the study were inconsistent with its patient and provider survey data and that the HMO regularly performs better than the standards set by the state of California.
“We are disappointed that the NUHW is going to such effort to attempt to discredit the great work performed every day by our clinicians and mental health therapists,” the company said. “They (therapists) provide timely, high-quality mental health care services to our patients, day in and day out, and whenever emergencies arise.”
The company went on to say that it offers Urgent Services where patients in crisis can get same-day or next-day appointments along with consultations for patients who have been admitted to a hospital or those who arrive in the emergency room. In addition, Kaiser says it offers a mix of individual and group therapy and defends the latter as a proven and effective method for mental health treatment.
Now, NUHW is demanding an investigation by the California Department of Managed Health Care, that regulates Kaiser's HMO plans and the Department of Insurance, which regulates the company's fee-for-service offerings.
They also want the Attorney General's office to look into potential unfair business practices at Kaiser mental health.
Survey Reveals Problems With Mental Health Care At Kaiser Permanente
November 14, 2011
By Kenny Goldberg
KPBS
SAN DIEGO — A union-backed survey of providers at Kaiser Permanente shows widespread dissatisfaction with the HMOs' mental health services. The union representing mental health professionals has been negotiating a new contract.
The National Union of Healthcare Workers surveyed more than 300 mental-health providers at Kaiser facilities in California. Many said they're not given enough time to evaluate patients, and they're not able to schedule return appointments in a timely way.
Jim Clifford has been a therapist at Kaiser's outpatient clinic in Otay Mesa for 10 years. He said mental-health care has gotten short shrift.
"We're trained to know what adequate care is and to provide it," he said. "And it's very troubling ethically to be in a position due to poor staffing not to be able to provide that. And it's been a chronic situation at Kaiser."
Clifford said Kaiser has refused to beef up staffing so that mental-health patients can get better care.
In a written statement, Kaiser officials said the quality of their mental health services has been recognized by independent rating agencies, and the state of California. The HMO said the NUHW survey was inaccurate and biased.
Long Wait Times The Norm At Kaiser Mental Health, Study Finds
Says company posting record profits while patients being denied the care they need.
Suisun City Patch
By Karina Ioffee
Nov. 15, 2011
Patients who seek mental health services at Kaiser Permanente have to wait for weeks for appointments, are routed into group therapy even when they need individual attention and are not given proper initial evaluations, according to a new report by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, that represents some 2,500 mental health clinicians.
The study is based on a survey of over 300 Kaiser mental health professionals practicing at 57 Kaiser facilities in Northern and Southern California, along with dozens of open-ended interviews with clinicians and patients.
Among its findings:
Kaiser mental health clinics are insufficiently staffed, with patients often forced to wait four weeks or longer for return appointments. That’s despite the fact that California state regulations require that patients be seen within ten business days,
Staff conduct accelerated initial patient evaluations that fall short of recommended clinical standards, which are then miscoded incorrectly in order to avoid penalties,
Patients that are funneled into group therapy even when their diagnoses call for individual therapy,
Falsified patient scheduling records that conceal appointment delays from state regulators, through practices such as "shadow" paper records and deliberately canceling and rescheduling patients' appointments while falsely attributing the cancellation to the patient.
Clinicians interviewed for the study describe a pattern of “deceptive practices by Kaiser administrators that routinely compromise the health and safety of thousands of patients suffering from emotional pain and distress in order to save the company money,” according to the report, titled “Care Delayed, Care Denied.”
Kaiser has more than 6.6 million members and is California's largest HMO. Since 2009, it has reported profits of $5.7 million and last year paid its Chief Executive Officer George Halvorson $6.7 million.
“It’s clear to us that decisions are being made from an accounting standpoint, that Kaiser’s approach to treatment is about making money for Kaiser and basically denying patients the treatment they deserve,” said Jim Clifford, a therapist for Kaiser in San Diego.
Click here to listen to interviews with Kaiser mental healthcare providers and patients
In an issued statement, Kaiser said the findings of the study were inconsistent with its patient and provider survey data and that the HMO regularly performs better than the standards set by the state of California.
“We are disappointed that the NUHW is going to such effort to attempt to discredit the great work performed every day by our clinicians and mental health therapists,” the company said. “They (therapists) provide timely, high-quality mental health care services to our patients, day in and day out, and whenever emergencies arise.”
The company went on to say that it offers Urgent Services where patients in crisis can get same-day or next-day appointments along with consultations for patients who have been admitted to a hospital or those who arrive in the emergency room. In addition, Kaiser says it offers a mix of individual and group therapy and defends the latter as a proven and effective method for mental health treatment.
Now, NUHW is demanding an investigation by the California Department of Managed Health Care, that regulates Kaiser's HMO plans and the Department of Insurance, which regulates the company's fee-for-service offerings.
They also want the Attorney General's office to look into potential unfair business practices at Kaiser mental health.
Kaiser Permanente found to be "cooking the books" regarding mental health care
Dr. Robert Schannon and Linda Thornton are in charge of Kaiser Permanente's Behavioral Health Department in San Diego.
Study: Calif. mental patients force to wait past limit
By Kelly Kennedy
USA TODAY
Nov. 13, 2011
WASHINGTON – Mental health patients in California are often forced to wait for care beyond the 10-day limit required by state law, which is a troubling sign for the 2010 federal health care law's requirement to treat mental health patients in the same way as those suffering from other ailments, a survey of providers shows.
A survey of 305 mental health providers at 57 California Kaiser Permanente facilities found that mental health patients do not receive needed care in a timely manner, that managers ask employees to "cook the books" so it appears they meet a California law for an initial appointment within 10 days, that patients are funneled into group therapy because there are not enough clinicians for one-on-one care and that clinicians do not have time to perform basic assessments.
The survey was conducted by the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
The California findings are troubling for the nation because the federal health law requires insurers to pay for mental health issues as they would for any standard health issue, often referred to as parity.
Staffing has "always been a problem," but recent parity laws have made it worse, said Clement Papazian, a Kaiser Permanente licensed clinical social worker out of Oakland, where the organization is based.
That doesn't surprise Patrick Gauthier, director of AHP Healthcare Solutions, a research group that looks at behavioral health. He said that the problem is growing across the nation and that it will continue to grow until "parity" is better defined: what treatments should be covered and who can — or should — provide them. Even so, he said, until mental health care is integrated into the health system — rather than appearing as an extra service — it will be easier for plans to cut costs there.
According to the California survey, more than half of clinicians said their next available appointment was more than 10 business days away, and more than 65% said return appointments took longer than 10 days.
The California Psychological Association released a statement saying its members were "deeply troubled" because "if true, the care of the patient is being compromised."
Don Mordecai, the regional director of mental health and chemical dependency services for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California said his clinicians "provide timely access to high-quality mental health care for our members."
"The survey information described to us does not align in any way with our own data, nor with independent evaluations of our services," he said.
Study: Calif. mental patients force to wait past limit
By Kelly Kennedy
USA TODAY
Nov. 13, 2011
WASHINGTON – Mental health patients in California are often forced to wait for care beyond the 10-day limit required by state law, which is a troubling sign for the 2010 federal health care law's requirement to treat mental health patients in the same way as those suffering from other ailments, a survey of providers shows.
A survey of 305 mental health providers at 57 California Kaiser Permanente facilities found that mental health patients do not receive needed care in a timely manner, that managers ask employees to "cook the books" so it appears they meet a California law for an initial appointment within 10 days, that patients are funneled into group therapy because there are not enough clinicians for one-on-one care and that clinicians do not have time to perform basic assessments.
The survey was conducted by the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
The California findings are troubling for the nation because the federal health law requires insurers to pay for mental health issues as they would for any standard health issue, often referred to as parity.
Staffing has "always been a problem," but recent parity laws have made it worse, said Clement Papazian, a Kaiser Permanente licensed clinical social worker out of Oakland, where the organization is based.
That doesn't surprise Patrick Gauthier, director of AHP Healthcare Solutions, a research group that looks at behavioral health. He said that the problem is growing across the nation and that it will continue to grow until "parity" is better defined: what treatments should be covered and who can — or should — provide them. Even so, he said, until mental health care is integrated into the health system — rather than appearing as an extra service — it will be easier for plans to cut costs there.
According to the California survey, more than half of clinicians said their next available appointment was more than 10 business days away, and more than 65% said return appointments took longer than 10 days.
The California Psychological Association released a statement saying its members were "deeply troubled" because "if true, the care of the patient is being compromised."
Don Mordecai, the regional director of mental health and chemical dependency services for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California said his clinicians "provide timely access to high-quality mental health care for our members."
"The survey information described to us does not align in any way with our own data, nor with independent evaluations of our services," he said.
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