Kaiser Permanente
Do your research on Kaiser very carefully if considering them as your HMO.
If you think that you might possibly need to join in an arbitration with Kaiser about negligence, misdiagnosis, wrong diagnosis or even death of a loved one.
This file includes the full opinion of the California Supreme Court in the case of Engalla v. Permanente Medical Group, Inc.
Engalla v. Permanente Medical Group Inc.
[Emphases are mine]
"[...]courts play in maintaining the procedural fairness, as well as the substantive fairness, of arbitration proceedings. Procedural manipulations can be used by a party not only to delay and obstruct the proceedings, thereby denying the other party the speed and efficiency that are the arbitration system's primary justification, but also to affect the possible outcome of the arbitration.
As to speed and efficiency, the Kaiser arbitration provision provides for appointment of a neutral arbitrator within a 60-day period. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 5, fn. 3.)
In reality, a neutral arbitrator was appointed within 60 days in less than 1 percent of Kaiser's arbitrations; the appointment occurred within 180 days (3 times the contractual time period) in less than 3 percent of Kaiser's arbitrations.
Indeed, the average time for appointment of a neutral arbitrator was 674 days, more than 11 times the contractual time period.
The average time for a Kaiser-administered arbitration hearing to begin (not conclude) was 863 days or almost 30 months. (Id., at p. 14.)
Although the comparison is not exact, it is instructive to compare the "speed" of Kaiser's arbitration process to the speed of judicial proceedings in Alameda County Superior Court, where this action was filed. During the 1993-94 fiscal year that court disposed of 96 percent of its civil cases in less than 24 months. (Judicial Council of Cal., Annual Data Reference (1993-94) Caseload Data by Individual Courts, Table No. 22, p. 52.)"
And:"[...] Kaiser's standard health care agreement, which included the arbitration requirement, was presented on a "take it or leave it" basis. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 40.) There was no true bargaining involved here.
Moreover, although Kaiser appears to have led its members to believe that Kaiser administered its arbitration system fairly and as a "fiduciary" (id., at p. 6), in reality the opposite may have been true. Kaiser "administered" its arbitration system through its defense attorneys who appear to have manipulated the process to Kaiser's advantage. (Id., at p. 26.)
http://www.fos-adr.com/engcasup.html
If you think that you might possibly need to join in an arbitration with Kaiser about negligence, misdiagnosis, wrong diagnosis or even death of a loved one.
This file includes the full opinion of the California Supreme Court in the case of Engalla v. Permanente Medical Group, Inc.
Engalla v. Permanente Medical Group Inc.
[Emphases are mine]
"[...]courts play in maintaining the procedural fairness, as well as the substantive fairness, of arbitration proceedings. Procedural manipulations can be used by a party not only to delay and obstruct the proceedings, thereby denying the other party the speed and efficiency that are the arbitration system's primary justification, but also to affect the possible outcome of the arbitration.
As to speed and efficiency, the Kaiser arbitration provision provides for appointment of a neutral arbitrator within a 60-day period. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 5, fn. 3.)
In reality, a neutral arbitrator was appointed within 60 days in less than 1 percent of Kaiser's arbitrations; the appointment occurred within 180 days (3 times the contractual time period) in less than 3 percent of Kaiser's arbitrations.
Indeed, the average time for appointment of a neutral arbitrator was 674 days, more than 11 times the contractual time period.
The average time for a Kaiser-administered arbitration hearing to begin (not conclude) was 863 days or almost 30 months. (Id., at p. 14.)
Although the comparison is not exact, it is instructive to compare the "speed" of Kaiser's arbitration process to the speed of judicial proceedings in Alameda County Superior Court, where this action was filed. During the 1993-94 fiscal year that court disposed of 96 percent of its civil cases in less than 24 months. (Judicial Council of Cal., Annual Data Reference (1993-94) Caseload Data by Individual Courts, Table No. 22, p. 52.)"
And:"[...] Kaiser's standard health care agreement, which included the arbitration requirement, was presented on a "take it or leave it" basis. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 40.) There was no true bargaining involved here.
Moreover, although Kaiser appears to have led its members to believe that Kaiser administered its arbitration system fairly and as a "fiduciary" (id., at p. 6), in reality the opposite may have been true. Kaiser "administered" its arbitration system through its defense attorneys who appear to have manipulated the process to Kaiser's advantage. (Id., at p. 26.)
http://www.fos-adr.com/engcasup.html
Replies
\"After 20 years the senior Permanente partners can look forward to about $11,000 a month in retirement monies at age 65 on unless they get employed elsewhere without permission or testify against the Kaiser interests.\"
\"Among Kaiser docs, the pension is known as the golden handcuffs. The doctors feel an obligation to stay their entire career or lose most of their pension.\"
http://emphysician.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-is-it-like-working-for-kaiser-lets.html
MEASLES VACCINE EXPERIMENTS ON MINORITY CHILDREN
\"With the help of Kaiser Permanente, more than 1500 six month old black and Hispanic babies in inner city Los Angeles were enrolled in the experiment starting in June 1990. The study was halted in October 1991 after repeated reports from vaccine trial sites in Africa that girl babies were dying in higher than expected numbers six months to three years after vaccination.
CDC Admits Informed Consent Violations -
CDC director David Satcher admitted in a June 17 Los Angeles Times article that a National Institutes of Health (NIH) investigation of the 1990-91 Los Angeles study found that informed consent regulations had been violated because the parents were not told their babies would be injected with an experimental vaccine that had never been licensed by the FDA for use in America.\"
\"CDC Knew It Was An Experiment -
In the LA Times article, the CDC\'s chief Satcher referred to the failure to tell the parents in LA that the EZ vaccine was experimental as a \"little mistake\" and not a deliberate attempt to deceive them. Kaiser maintains that the failure to inform the parents was an administrative \"oversight.\" However, CDC grant announcements in 1989 clearly state that the vaccine trials are \"experimental, developmental, test and research work.\"
http://www.nvic.org/nvic-archives/newsletter/vaccinereactionjune1996.aspx
\"He [Jayant Patel] later worked at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Portland. Kaiser banned him from liver and pancreatic surgeries in 1998 after reviewing 79 complaints about Patel. The Oregon Board of Medical Examiners later cited him for \"gross or repeated acts of negligence.\"
\"In 2003, Patel took up a posting at the Bundaberg Base Hospital. He left Australia in 2005, just as questions began to be raised about his record.
An investigation in Australia led to an extradition request. In 2008, the FBI arrested Patel at his home in Oregon. He was brought back to Australia and the trial began that year.\"
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/australia_convicts_us_doctor_f.html
[note: Kaiser only banned him from doing a certain type of surgery but did not \'fire\' him.]
[I\'m sure he\'s not the only surgeon who has killed patients from gross negligence. But since the topic IS Kaiser......]