Received by email a few days ago. Unfortunately this is all too typical, and here’s why: Kaiser Permanente doctors are trained to minimize your symptoms, and pressured to always default to the least expensive treatment. In fact, nearly all of the grievances we hear about are at least partially due to this cost-saving practice. Many never find out they have been receiving substandard care until they change insurance, because KP won’t even tell you more expensive alternatives exist. That is what happens when your doctor is employed by your health plan. Money first; Hippocratic Oath last.
By Michael Doering
I left Kaiser some time ago because my son has epilepsy and needed a better choice of doctors to deal with his problem. My own problem was pretty simple compared to his. Shoulder trouble. I went to the Kaiser same day appointments for years and to the “sports medicine” doc, named Holmes. I also reported it to my primary care physician, a Dr. Lane. All I ever got from them was a shot of cortisone and one session with a physical therapist who said I needed to hold my shoulders back more. She was a contractor. One session. That was about 5 years ago.
Today, on another medical plan, outside the bureaucracy of Kaiser, I went to a GP called Chambers. He asked me to lift my shoulders and move my arms in one or two other positions. He saw me trying to get my wallet out of my pocket. In about ten seconds he could see the problem. He said “You have frozen shoulder.” He took an X-ray and referred me to an orthopedic surgeon. Before I left he spoke to me and said I had severe arthritis in my shoulder and probably some cartilage damage too and would probably need surgery. SO WHERE WERE YOU ON THAT ONE, KAISER? 5 years I waited in pain, unable to sleep at night.
You sum up so many of Kaiser P.’s behavior so well here. If only I knew this in 1998. I maybe could have avoided my catastophic life at/ and after Kaiser HMO in Santa Rosa. Please see my videos on You tube under Bobbie Jenke. I’m a CA Special Educator, devasted by care received at Kaiser and after. I need to get out of Santa Rosa, where many (former) Kaiser doctors now work at our various clinics–open to Medicare and Medi-Cal patients. They use the SAME tactics that Kaiser used i.e.to refuse to diagnose me, and minimize my dangerous injuries. The CA DHS is complicit, I learned after many emails asking for help. Is there a way to find which doctors used to work for Kaiser and were trained in the Kaiser way?? Please advise. Thanks! email is listed–see http://www.tossurgerynightmare.com and you tube for me.
I had the same experience with shoulder and arm pain being misdiagnosed for years!!!! For 4 years of several doctors visits, Er visits, urgent care visits! I was told different things every time, had 2 steroid injections which caused severe pain, one physical therapy appointment which consisted of me standing against a wall with my arm reached up against it. The last urgent care visit I had a PA yelled at me and told me that I had carpal tunnel and that my hand was completely numb because I smoke and have bad circulation!! She prescribed me prednisone and (thankfully) referred me to a physical medicine doctor for my “carpal tunnel” problem. Well, after examination by the physical medicine doctor and tests done I have cervical stenosis with myelopathy. My condition has gotten worse over the years and when you have myelopathy that means spinal cord damage, so any surgical procedures I have done will only prevent any more damage and will not cure what’s already damaged. But now unfortunately I am having problems with the neurosurgery department. My first visit there the neurosurgeon who saw me said I had to make an appointment with another neurosurgeon because I needed surgery and the only openings he had available were in December and his wife was due with their first child that month so he might have to cancel at the last minute. Now I am with another neurosurgeon in the same location and it has been an absolute run around nightmare!! I don’t have time at this moment to go into thoses details but I will as soon as I can. But the frustration of all of these things is what led me to find this forum
Did you know in northern ca kaiser they are main sponsor for sports medicine, get this, they CARE for the Sacramento Kings basketball team. How convoluted Kaiser is.
Same exact experience here. Was diagnosed with a bunion, and have a bunionectomy. All through the next year I continued to have pain in my foot, which the surgery hadn’t reduced. I was told “it should be better in a few months”, “it can take up to a year to heal”, prescribed me cortisone shots (by numerous doctors, which I refused), and generally just said “how great your foot looks”.
After a year of pain, and fruitless visits with five Kaiser specialists, I was told “this is the way you’ll be for life”. Soon after I quit Kaiser, and was diagnosed with severe arthritis in my large tow’s joint. How the hell does Kaiser miss this? Simple….they don’t care, and are more interested in pushing one agenda, or the doctors only care about backing each other up.
They sure as hell don’t care about the patient…..Sadly it’s not enough for a lawsuit, even though the operating podiatrist was sued for malpractice just after my surgery (for over a million). No doubt she’s still practicing as though nothing happened.