Catch Up Post — Part 5

And the fraud just keeps on coming, albeit somewhat delayed on our part.

• Dr. Hamid Safari, the Kaiser Fresno perinatologist who was accused of unsafe practices and causing the deaths of two babies, was cleared by the Medical Board of California and tried to get his job back. Of course the MBC practically requires a signed confession before they don’t clear someone. The same article tells us that the two doctors who blew the whistle, and claimed retaliation as a result, settled their lawsuit against KP for $1.4 million. Our prior coverage is here.
• According to a study conducted by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Kaiser Permanente denies 28% of all claims. Even more interesting because they are also providing the health care.
• The Kaiser Foundation Rehabilitation Center in Vallejo was fined $25,000 for leaving a sponge inside a surgical patient.
• You can’t even get away from them when looking for a bus route.
• A former Kaiser Hawaii optometrist won a $180,000 arbitration award for wrongful termination. Gotta love the canned PRBS™ response. Or hate it — you decide.
• Kaiser’s income rises even when membership falls. Hmm.
• Kaiser Northwest paid $1.83 million to settle allegations of Medicare fraud. Not the first time, and probably not the last.
• Kaiser Sacramento misplaced a baby’s body for 6 days, causing the grieving parents much unnecessary additional distress. It had apparently been placed in a pathology department refrigerator and was mistaken for an ice pack. Yeah, shocking even to us, after all we have seen and heard. We do hear about a lot of Kaiser scandals — many that we can’t repeat for privacy reasons — and it does seem that the Sacramento area facilities have more problems than most. Buyer beware.
• Kaiser involved in a “private label” Medicaid drug pricing scam, resulting in a multi-million dollar fine. Again, not the first time.
• Kaiser paid a $3.75 million fine for submitting false bills to the federal government. Care they claimed had been provided by teaching physicians had actually been administered by unsupervised residents.

We’re almost done with 2009. Whatever will the new year bring?