From the Seattle Times:
Health plan fined for denying claims
By Kyung M. Song
Seattle Times staff reporter
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan has been fined $65,000 for denying claims from 299 policyholders in Southwest Washington who received care in emergency rooms during 2003 and 2004.
Insurance Commissioner Mike Kriedler announced Friday that Kaiser violated a state law that requires insurers [...]

From San Francisco Business Times:
By Chris Rauber
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has accepted Kaiser Permanente’s correction plan to fix deficiencies in its troubled San Francisco-based kidney-transplant unit, regional officials at CMS said Friday.
Full details weren’t made public, and Jeff Flick, CMS’s San Francisco-based regional administrator, was not immediately available for comment on July [...]

Two new member privacy breaches have been reported in the last week. Is anyone else finding Kaiser’s typical canned response that it takes “protecting the privacy and security of our members’ personal medical information seriously” a little difficult to believe, much like its empty advertising claims?
From Wired News:

Kaiser Joins Lost Laptop Crowd — Kaiser [...]

From San Francisco Business Times:
by Chris Rauber
A whistleblower who helped instigate regulatory and media investigations of Kaiser Permanente’s troubled Northern California kidney-transplant unit has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit, alleging that senior Kaiser medical-group officials ignored several warnings about mounting problems in the program.
In early May, under pressure from federal and state authorities, Oakland-based Kaiser [...]

From the Portland Business Journal:
by Robin J. Moody
Kaiser Permanente Northwest’s regional president, Cynthia Finter, has resigned amid dramatic income declines at the health plan. The change is effective Aug. 15.
Tricia Peters, vice president of human resources, will serve as acting regional president while a search is conducted to find a permanent replacement.
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan [...]

Another case of retaliation for reporting illegal practices at Kaiser:
I hope you can take interest in my horrible experience with Kaiser.
UNLICENSED STUDENTS DID YOUR X-RAYS at SF KAISER HOSPITAL.
I was a x-ray student at Kaiser Permanente School of Allied Health Program at Richmond CA.
When I was interning at the SF Kaiser Hospital, I was told [...]

From San Francisco Business Times
by Chris Rauber
The former administrator of Kaiser Permanente’s troubled Northern California kidney transplant unit has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the health-care giant, seeking at least $5 million in damages.
The suit, filed Friday in San Francisco Superior Court by the former administrative head of the unit, David Merlin, alleges he [...]

From San Francisco Business Times:
by Chris Rauber
Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California region has tapped a replacement for Michael Alexander to head the giant health system’s San Francisco Medical Center and affiliated operations.
Christine Robisch, formerly a senior executive in Kaiser’s Walnut Creek-based Diablo service area, has been named senior vice president and area manager for San Francisco, [...]

Yes, we’ve seen you creeping around in our stats the last couple of days, so we thought it would be polite to say hello and welcome you to kaiserthrive.org. So Hello. And Welcome. While you only seem to be interested in Kaiser’s ad campaign, we’d like to invite you to take a look [...]

From an outraged family member of a Kaiser Permanente kidney patient. Kaiser continues to deny that any patients were harmed by its bungling:
My sister, Kim, is currently under the Kaiser Program. Her kidneys failed 6 yrs ago, (March 2000) she went into a coma and was not expected to ever come out. She is [...]