Kaiser News and Scandals Part 4, Privacy and ‘Thrive’-acy Edition.
- Another case of inappropriately accessed electronic medical records. This happens a lot. Anyone at KP with a Health Connect login can access your records at any time. Yes, there are access logs, and if it is discovered the person will be disciplined — but that only happens after the damage is done.
- Not much electronic privacy for job applicants either.
- An insurance salesman tells a prospective client that Kaiser Permanente is the #1 supplier of bodies to morgues in the Bay Area (about halfway down the page). Yikes, but we believe it.
- Another Kaiser doctor, David Hung Do, sexually assaulted several of his patients, and KP was sued over it. Where do they find these guys?
- Kaiser’s Sacramento area hospitals score at the bottom of the patient satisfaction heap in a national report by Consumer Reports magazine. Why does that only happen when KP doesn’t control the survey results?
- Non-profit Kaiser raked in more than $1 billion in net ‘not-for-profits’ in just the first half of 2009. But they can’t afford your MRI.
- Another patient finds it difficult to Thrive at Kaiser. And just as I was typing this, that stupid Thrive commercial with the stripper poles came on in the background. Eww.
- A former KP employee and whistleblower, John Denning, filed a lawsuit alleging unfair and/or illegal business practices and HIPAA privacy violations. We believe this too; all you gotta do is look around.
- Oops!
- How much do you think those Thrive ads cost you, the members, every year? But they can’t afford your MRI. Did we already say that? Well it was worth repeating.
We’re only about 3/4 of the way through 2009. Even I’m a little surprised by how much Kaiser Krappola we missed, but it is so important to document it all in one place to show the continuing pattern of the same old problems. There is more; much more.
Until next time…