Kaiser used to be considered the gold standard in health care. Not anymore! You might be fooled if you are young and in great health, however, you best believe that if you ever experience a traumatic health event, you will very soon discover that you will receive the worst care imaginable when you need care the most. I was born at Kaiser and I am now 53 years old. My mother retired from Department of Justice after 58 years and for more than half a century she had paid for Kaiser's top of the line product.( Let's be honest, what they really are is corporation focused on profit rather than a health care facility with great doctors upholding the Hippocratic Oath). I am sure she anticipated after half a century of dishing out a ton of money for this gold standard health care with minimal use she would receive qualified, informed, compassionate care or at least adequate care when she needed it most. Sadly, that is not the case. Every decision they make has nothing to do with a patient's well being. It only has to do with profit and covering their behinds. They force their doctors to adhere to blanket policies with no consideration of a patient's actual conditions and needs let alone their well-being. They intentionally reduce a person's quality of life and provide as little care as they can get away with. They misdiagnose, ignore patient messages which if they had answered just may have saved their lives. Miss symptoms and tests clearly indicating an upcoming adverse health event that could have been prevented. Then when they have almost done you in, they get a sick, perverse pleasure out of making you suffer and providing no compassionate relief. They don't care about you. They don't aspire to help you or improve your health and life. They don't care if you live or die. Never leave your loved ones alone in a Kaiser hospital and be prepared to fight every day for even the smallest of their needs. You will have to advocate very hard for your loved one if you wish your loved one to survive their Kaiser experience. Never let your guard down and never accept what their doctors say as an "informed and educated opinion of a professional with expertise". They have a huge shortage of doctors and most of them they do hire have less knowledge of the human body and medicine than you do. They are arrogant, apathetic, monsters who are spineless puppets for the corporate master they serve. Every day, you will have to fight. They will gladly place enormous amount of responsibility and demands upon you that they were unwilling to place upon themselves. In the end, you will be the one providing all the care for your loved ones and if that were not enough, they will hinder you every step of the way. Even when they reduce their role to merely providing you with the tools for you to suddenly become the doctor, nurse, cna, etc. and provide round the clock care, you will have to fight for every single necessity your loved one requires to survive as they slowly attempt to take every needed tool away. Every refill of any prescription will be a fight. Every time you need their feeding supplies, every time they juggle your loved one around to different unqualified doctors with no experience who candidly state your loved one has medically complex conditions out of their realm and they don't feel qualified to provide their care. God forbid your loved one has conditions severe enough to require pain medication. That is endless Loop of lies, deception, excuses, game playing and treating an elderly person in quite serious condition who has never touched a drug or alcohol or even a can of soda in their life like they are a drug addict when they are bedridden, nonverbal, tubefed and missing half of their brain rendering them not even cognizant enough to drug seek, unable to administer their own medication making it impossible for them to abuse or take more than prescribed, but crying and moaning in pain 24/7. They actually recommended trying diet and exercise to manage pain. She is paralyzed, bedridden and can take nothing by mouth being tube fed formula. It doesn't take a genius to realize that recommendation is not going to work for this particular patient. They said she could try meditation. She can't even follow commands let alone sit through their online meditation coarse and follow directions. They have reduced what little quality of life she had left to zero. When she first was discharged, she was improving. Physical and occupational therapy had to sign off because they said her pain wasn't being managed well enough to be able to work with her. She went from smiling, enjoying her grandbabies, responding to music, taking thickened liquids by mouth, sitting up in a wheelchair, starting to touch pictures to express her needs or answer yes or no, to laying in a bed in agony all day and barely being able to tolerate being touched. We don't know how much longer we have her and they have ensured her remaining time is spent in a sadistic, torturous hell of their creation. Right now, my focus is on our mother and they are known to retaliate against patients for people speaking out or taking action against them. However, I will continue to fight and advocate for her every day and when her time on this earth is done, I will be relentless and unyielding in pursuit of Justice for our dear mother. She deserves much better than this! Heck, she spent her life in service to others and she has earned much better than this! She paid for much better than this! I will never forgive Kaiser for how they have treated her and they will answer for everything they have done! I will expose them and I will bring the receipts. They have no conscience and their souls are black as night. This is how they treat people who purchase their top of line product for 60+ years advertising "quality care" and "compassionate care" and "Thriving" which there is not even a hint of in their care. If your loved ones have Kaiser, I recommend taking a notebook and pen everywhere you go and document everything. Record and document every interaction you have wether it be with a doctor, pharmacist, administrator or call center personnel. A patient advocate is not going to help your loved one. They are just another Kaiser paid employee. Go to the top. Don't waste time filing complaints with member services that disappear into thin air never to be addressed. Don't be fooled that you finally are speaking to a compassionate soul who wants to help. Even if they truly were the soul you thought, the person they must pass it along to will quickly squash it and make it disappear. They have this odd forced arbitration/mediation process, however, while many think that renders them helpless against Kaiser, it does not as many good attorneys will inform you. It does not mean they are untouchable or that they cannot be brought to court. Remember, to them your loved one is just one patient in an endless stream of patients that they evaluate and treat based on what is most lucrative to them, but to you your love one is the person you love and cherish most in this world. Educate yourselves on their condition, their rights and how to navigate the health care system. It is you that will act in their best interest and fight for them. It is just a shame that you will have to fight an institution that is supposed to care for, heal, improve and help human beings rather than harm them.
I used to think it was kind of neat and convenient that Kaiser was a "one-stop-shop" where you could everything done. Now, I think it is something that should be well investigated and prohibited. Your provider and your insurance company being one in the same is inherently an enormous conflict of interest that should not be allowed and should not be legal.

Bait and switch sums it up,...

Delayed referrals to specialists

I love Kaiser

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