Catching up

Our apologies for the dearth of updates lately, but by no means does our temporary silence indicate that the Kaiser Krappola hasn’t continued to hit the fan. There’s too much to post individually, so please enjoy this Kaiser Permanente News Roundup:

• Now that Kaiser has completed the nationwide roll out of the outpatient side of its HealthConnect electronic medical record, studies like this one, that exploit electronic patient health data (without your permission) will become more commonplace.
• Victim of Kaiser’s disgraced kidney transplant program, Bernard Burks, has won the right to have his lawsuit heard by a jury in a court of law, rather than in Kaiser’s rigged closed arbitration system. Besides justice for Mr. Burks, what we’re looking most forward to is the rare opportunity to spotlight Kaiser lawyer dirty tricks, which will be publicly available in the transcripts.
• Kaiserquotes(dot)com continues its paid blog post spam campaign with the intention of gaming the search engines. Google doesn’t care yet, but that will change if everyone with a Webmaster Tools account reports the paid links, which are against Google’s rules.
• According to the Wall Street Journal, KP is one of many medical facilities reusing single-use medical devices against the advice of manufacturers, who claim the instruments “pose a higher risk of failure and harm when recycled.”
• Yet another used and abused member is Sick and Tired of Kaiser Permanente!
• Members are fleeing Kaiser’s HMO for KP’s new high-deductible and coinsurance health plans. CEO George Halvorson — as usual — misses the point.
• The Los Angeles Times reports that Area Kaiser patients [are] less satisfied than many at other hospitals. Funny how that only happens when Kaiser doesn’t control the survey results.
• In Conscientious Health Insurance Company-an Oxymoron, Tam strongly reminds us why we must “QUESTION EVERYTHING FROM YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY. THEY AREN’T IN IT TO TAKE CARE OF YOU, THEY ARE IN IT FOR THE MONEY.”
• Hospital Stays Vary Less in Kaiser Permanente Hospitals than Others in California. Kaiser’s PR department thinks this is a good thing worth bragging about in a press release. We say it’s more evidence of Kaiser’s meat-market brand of one-size-fits-all medicine.
• NBC11 Investigates Mammography Violations, including several at Kaiser Novato and other Bay Area facilities.
• Kaiser’s cover up of the death of Beth Stover’s baby made the front page of the April 29th issue of USA Today. As a result of the article Ms. Stover was asked to give testimony before Congress on May 13th, as a part of Whistleblower’s Week (transcripts to follow in a later post). Thankfully, Kaiser wasn’t aware of the testimony, which prevented them from interfering. The complete story behind Lehna Brewer’s death can be found here.
• Kaiser CEO George Halvorson inserts foot in mouth.
• Kaiser Colorado opposes a bill that would stop insurers from paying doctors to switch drugs.
• Kaiser plants another visionary leader shill on a government health care advisory committee.
• Kaiser’s 1st quarter 2008 net income drops 64%, while membership remains flat.
• A Kaiser pharmacist was sentenced to six months in jail for stealing medications from Kaiser pharmacies in Maryland.
• 6000 Kaiser members have been put in the middle of a billing dispute between Kaiser Permanente and Prime Health Care. It’s almost fun to watch the two criminal organizations battling it out, but not when the only casualties are the innocent patients.
• Kaiser surgeon, Bruce Barker, has been sentenced to six months in prison for perjuring himself in the trial of a young man who was accused of illegally possessing a gun. Note that the word “former” is missing from the line about Barker’s employment at KP, which tells us that a perjury conviction isn’t grounds for dismissal. A later article claims he was only suspended. Scary.
• In If I wasn’t laughing I’d be screaming: Trying to get treated at Kaiser Permanente (Part II), Red Storm brings us up to date on her ongoing struggle to obtain necessary medical care at Kaiser.
• Anyone who still doubts that Kaiser Permanente physicians and the health plan are one and the same — which creates a conflict of interest so big you could drive an ambulance through it — should find those doubts forever put to rest by recent news that Kaiser doctors in Colorado are now making sales calls to potential members on behalf of the health plan.
• The California Department of Managed Health Care has levied a $300,000 fine, and ordered Kaiser to reinstate coverage to over 1,000 members who had their policies illegally rescinded between 2004 and 2006. As usual, Kaiser’s PRBS release attempts to make it all sound voluntary, but Jerry Flanagan of Consumer Watchdog points out that in the end, patients are still screwed.