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 28. Jack Cheevers, a spokesman for the region, confirmed that the federal regulatory agency has approved the correction plan
But in an earlier interview with the San Francisco Business Times, Flick said an agreement by the agency and Oakland-based Kaiser would mean that CMS accepts the steps Kaiser has taken or “will be taking” to make sure its Northern California kidney-transplant unit is in compliance with all Medicare requirements.
Medicare investigated the kidney program in early May, and discovered a number of serious deficiencies or gaps that CMS said put Kaiser out of compliance with those guidelines. A CMS report released June 23 outlined those alleged problems, including inadequate staffing, chaotic conditions, insufficient management supervision, poor training of staffers, and other obstacles that kept many patients from getting kidney transplants in an orderly, timely manner. Others reportedly lost their place in line for replacement kidneys.
According to an often-quoted analysis by the Los Angeles Times, twice as many patients died on Kaiser’s kidney waiting list in 2005 as received transplants — a reversal of the statewide average for similar patients.
Ultimately, Kaiser could lose all Medicare funding for its end-stage renal program if those deficiencies are not corrected, CMS officials have said.
In the original version of Kaiser’s correction plan, filed June 22 with CMS, Kaiser officials pointedly noted that they didn’t agree with or acknowledge the accuracy of the agency’s long list of alleged operational and managerial deficiencies in the kidney unit, and declined to acknowledge any mistakes or take responsibility or liability for them.
You should hightlight this part:
//Kaiser officials pointedly noted that they didn’t agree with or acknowledge the accuracy of the agency’s long list of alleged operational and managerial deficiencies in the kidney unit, and declined to acknowledge any mistakes or take responsibility or liability for them.//
This is the Kaiser preset pose, and their strategy relies on just getting away with this most of the time. This is what needs to change.