The HMO abruptly announces that it will transfer about 2,000 transplant patients back to UC hospitals. The details are unresolved.
By Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein, Times Staff Writers
May 13, 2006
Kaiser Permanente announced Friday that it was indefinitely suspending its kidney transplant program in Northern California after revelations that it had endangered hundreds of patients.
“I think, quite frankly, they searched their souls and they decided that it just was going to be very difficult to ensure that all the patients’ needs were met,” said Cindy Ehnes, director of the California Department of Managed Health Care. “They were trying to essentially fix the airplane while they were flying it.”
The decision, which Kaiser described as voluntary, followed reports in The Times last week detailing the problems that arose after the giant HMO forced up to 1,500 patients to move to its start-up program in the fall of 2004.
The patients had been treated in established centers at UC San Francisco and UC Davis, under contract with Kaiser.
At Kaiser’s new center in San Francisco, twice as many people died on the waiting list as received kidneys last year. The statewide pattern for transplant centers was the reverse: Twice as many patients received kidneys as died.
Hundreds of patients were not properly transferred from their old programs to Kaiser’s, leaving them in limbo with little hope of receiving new kidneys.
Friday’s decision to suspend the program appears to have been made in some haste, with reporters given about 10 minutes’ notice of the telephone briefing.
As recently as Wednesday, Kaiser officials had touted the program’s quality at a news conference, while apologizing for administrative blunders.
Now, Kaiser will send all of its patients back to the UC hospitals.
“We really felt that in order to ensure that our patients were absolutely getting the best care possible, at this point in time we really needed to suspend operations,” Mary Ann Thode, president of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals in Northern California, said in Friday’s call.
“We think we’re making the right decision and doing what we should be doing in this situation,” she added.
The move solves some problems but creates another: how to safely transfer a caseload now totaling more than 2,000 patients.
Before Kaiser launched its program in 2004, the HMO worked more than a year on a plan to move its patients from UC San Francisco and UC Davis. Even so, the transition was fraught with problems. More than 200 Kaiser patients were never properly shifted to the Kaiser program.
The reverse migration will essentially happen on the fly.
Neither Kaiser officials nor regulators could provide details Friday about the transition. Meetings are scheduled in the coming week to hash them out.
“There’s no plans in place,” said Dr. Stephen Tomlanovich, medical director of UC San Francisco’s renal transplant service. “Nor did they contact us to have an emergency meeting before this press conference.”
Dr. Richard Perez, chief of UC Davis’ transplant center, said he did not know the extent of Kaiser’s plans until being told by The Times.
“I think in the long run, it’s best for the patients,” he said. “They were being taken care of appropriately before [Kaiser took over their care], and it sounds like it’s going to go back to that.”
Kaiser’s Thode said the transplant program would continue to perform surgeries on willing patients until the shift was complete. She could not say when that would be.
During the transition, the HMO will also continue evaluating people who are willing to donate a kidney to a relative, she said.