My mother had Kaiser as her health plan from the 1970’s till she died in 1991. Her story is very similar. In Ohio, Kaiser no longer has it’s own “hospital facilities” as they originally did in the 70’s. They contract with other hospitals for their inpatient and certain diagnostic & treatment needs. As a healthcare professional in the Cleveland area, I can honestly say that Kaiser has a poor payment history with their contracted providers. Therefore, they change their contracted providers frequently.

My mother’s story begins in 1987 or 88, she was diagnosed with throat cancer. Because Kaiser did not have the facilities to treat her, she was referred to another facility for her chemo and radiations treatments. The radiation therapy was concentrated in the throat and upper chest area. These were ongoing till mid 1988. When she was finished with her treatments, she returned to Kaiser for follow-up. She received chest x-rays every 3-6 months to monitor her radiation exposure. After approximately her 3rd follow-up a physician noticed a spot on 2 prevoius x-rays that we never knew about. He was visibly disturbed by what he saw and asked if my mother was treated for lung cancer as well as throat cancer. We indicated that she had not. He wanted her to have a needle biopsy of her lung to confirm or deny a malignancy, and told us he was making a referral request. After 3 months of calling for the appointment confirmation and getting the run around, I threatened legal action if we did not have a referral. By the end of the day, my mother had an appointment for 1 week later, at a totally different contracted facility. The biopsy confirmed adenocarcinoma of the lung and she received an appointment with the Oncology Department. WHen we went to her Oncology appointment, the doctor screamed at her and berated her for her health habits. After he settled down, he told us that she was a poor surgical risk, and since she had chemo and radiations so recently, that was not an option either. He stated that the chemo that she had was too much, and she could not be given any more at that time. The radiation she could have would only be a limited amount and would only serve to shrink the tumor. She was given about a year to live.

To my mother’s credit, I must say that I watched her make the most of her “sentence”. She was never a burden, and insisted on doing everything she could to enjoy her grandchildren till the day she died. I miss her terribly and her grandsons were denied a grandmother because of Kaiser’s greed and negligence. Although I never pursued a malpractice suit, I have continued to preach healthcare insurance awareness and, in my profession, have remained a patient advocate.

Yep, keep looking because you’ll find lot’s of negligence, corruption and fraud at kaiser because this is how they do business. Take it from one who knows firsthand.