Kaiser and its advertising goons Campbell-Ewald have recently announced the newest phase of the Thrive brand campaign, which stresses preventative care and features a Saturday Night Fever style “Stayin’ Alive” parody, among other silliness. This after months of bad publicity over the failure of its kidney transplant program, which caused the deaths of over 100 patients and resulted in the largest fine ever imposed on an HMO by California’s Department of Managed Health Care.
While we’re just thrilled to pieces that Kaiser is finally admitting that all it is good for is flu shots and pap smears, it continues to use the “Thrive” tagline as if anyone other than Kaiser’s upper management and $hareholder doctors are actually thriving there, and we can’t imagine a bigger insult to the kidney patients and their surviving family members than a “Stayin’ Alive” parody. Sooooo tacky. Of course our Thrive ad parodies tell the real story, as does the following letter we received about one patient’s recent horrifying experience in Kaiser’s emergency room:
I was in a motorcycle accident on Saturday, August 12th. I was taken to a non-Kaiser emergency room that night and they stressed to me how important it was that I see my doctor on Monday. So I of course couldn’t get an appointment at Kaiser and was forced to go to Kaiser’s ER for treatment.
I was waiting in excruciating pain for 6 hours before anyone saw me. They took an X-ray, during which I asked the tech to please not touch me for I had severe road rash and open wounds all over my body. He apparently was deaf or extremely incompetent because he kept pushing and shoving me around until I was in the positions he needed. After that I waited for another hour in a bed, watching young children and elderly people come and go. ( I am a 26 year old female.) It occurred to me that I was hysterical with pain and must have appeared a bit shabby given the circumstances (I wore “comfortable” clothing and no makeup. I mean give me a break, I had just been in an accident and I was on my way to the emergency room not a beauty pagent) The point is I must have looked like some kind of junky what with my eyes swollen from crying and my restricted movement walking through the door.
But the “geniuses” they had for staff working didn’t pick up on this so I think that is why when I finally saw an actual doctor after 7 hours, he had his hands all over me, rubbing my legs and then shoving me from side to side, he proceeded to rip my bandages off me. I was screaming with pain and they told me ” be quiet, there are children in the room”. I begged the doctor to please pull the bandages off slower but he failed to hear me above his ego. Once he actually saw my wounds, he gasped with realization that “she wasn’t kidding”. Yes doctor, I am in pain that is why I need pain killers!!!
He left the room and never returned leaving my third degree burns, cuts and road rash open for the room to see for another hour. After that I called my boyfriend and told him he needed to pick me up because I was convinced that I was being neglected and was not prepared to wait 4 more hours for a condesending staff to come sexually harrass me and push me around. Essentially I was treated like some kind of drug addict trash that day.
I then continued to seek help by fighting my way through the phone system for an appointment. I left a message for the advice nurse. Apparently kaiser doesn’t see a victim of a near fatal motorcycle accident a priority.
I recieved a call back at 2am Tuesday morning!!! The nurse was able to make an appointment for me, after I had been told all day that there was no possible way to schedule me an appointment until this Friday. I didn’t have a cold people, I had potentially infected gaping wounds all over my body, one would think they could squeeze me into see a doctor.
I hope my story helps contribute to something that will ensure no human being is ever treated like this again. Those emergency room people had no souls and the inhumanity of it all broke my heart.
KAISER IS POND SCUM! I am so sorry for the experience that you had. You are absolutely right when you say they have no souls. That was my experience as well. Just be sure they don’t start “losing” critical records. That is what they do to avoid a fair arbitration. I would ditch Kaiser as soon as you can.
They let My Beautiful unborn Child die because of their LAX, UNCARING attitude. Kaiser needs to be put out of business for good. I was told to go home and don’t come back unless I was bleeding or my water broke… my Baby died the very next day (I was actually at Kaiser twice in one day the day before my Baby died). She was past her due date, there has been no explanation as to why she died. She was a perfect little beauty, 7 lb, 13 oz. And they “lost” the critical records.
Look out Kaiser, here I come.
I would LOVE to share my story if anyone is interested.
email: elibug@aol.com
Kaiser is nothing but a scam.
Hi Beth,
Yes, we would be happy to tell your story if you’ll write it up for us. I did answer your emails but I have a feeling they may have ended up in your junk mailbox. I’ll try again.
It’s a shame you can’t publish all the stories you get via mailing list. More of these stories need to be made public.
Kaiser isn’t even good for pap smears. My wife had several come back abnormal, and they blew them off. Finally, in March of 2005, after being seen for abnormal periods, they found she had cancer. Her hysterectomy was performed by 2 competent surgeons, but follow up care was lax. She developed a seroma, and twice went into the ER due to pain and massive abdominal swelling. On one occasion, the doctor – if you can call him that – grabbed the seroma and moved it all around. (She hadn’t been out of the hospital but a couple of weeks at the most, and her incision was still healing.) She was in excruciating pain, but her pride wouldn’t let her scream out. The damn doctor wrote on her chart that she had an anxiety attack and was drug seeking and sent her home.
We called the assistant to the OB/GYN surgeon who was treating my wife, and tried to get an appointment. They were all booked up for weeks she said. That’s when my wife suggested we take a picture of the seroma and send it to the doctor. (I’m an employee at Kaiser, so I was able to find the doctor’s email addy.) What do you know, we got a call back the same day saying to come on in tomorrow.
We went in, and both surgeon’s who operated on my wife were there. (Both are respective heads of OB/GYN at 2 medical centers in SoCal, but one has had more oncology experience, even working at the City of Hope prior to joining Kaiser.) They were not too happy when they saw the seroma. The second surgeon asked my wife to recount the experience she had in the ER. She told them what happened, and my wife could tell the second surgeon was irrate because of his facial expressions and he was visible shaking. (Wow – maybe a Kaiser doctor who gives an actual damn?)
They proceeded to drain a large amount of fluid from the seroma. To this day, the damage done by the seroma stretching her skin is still there. She has a large pannus that pulls on the incision and it feels like a hot needle stabbing her. She can’t do anything around the house without being in pain. She’s had suicidal thoughts, and I even had to take her to the ER (no, not Kaiser’s ER) because she said she was going to kill herself. Since then she’s been on pain meds and anti-depressants. She feels like she must be craxy because no one takes her pain seriously, nor is willing to do anything about it.
Kaiser has also conditionally denied surgery to remove the pannus that has developed, stating the surgery is “cosmetic”. I say conditionally, because they’ve asked for more documentation. I don’t hold out hope that they will do the right thing once I send them the documentation they asked for. (BTW, I am on Kaiser’s self-insured PPO which is what they offer in their benefits package as an alternative to their regular HMO plans. It isn’t much better, except that I can sue Kaiser under ERISA and not go through arbitration.)
So if you are considering a job at Kaiser, understand that you are rolling the dice on your health and welfare, and that of your family. And the odds are stacked heavily against you.
All I want to know is if you had a helmet on?
That’s a strange and irrelevant question. People who don’t wear helmets aren’t entitled to humane and professional treatment in the ER? Hopefully you don’t work in one.
I have been fighting with Kasier to help me for about 6 weeks now they know what i have they know i am in pain and couldnt possably care any less.
it started back in Oct 2006 i had a strange pain in my right side and everytime i ate it would get wrose it was late at night so i headed to the ER. after a 7 hour wait they tell me they “think” i have gall stones but sent me home with acid reflux meds.
then 6 months later i get that pain in my side again only now its alot worse and isnt going away i try and set up to see my doctor the soonest they could fit me in was 3-5 weeks from then.. so i go to my Er again this time they actually run tests and so an ultra sound and confrim yes i have gall stones here some meds and we’ll get back to you on when your surgery well be..
a week ago i went back to the ER i couldnt take the Pain.. they tell me there going to prep me for surgery to the IV and everything i tell them i react badlt the some pain meds and ignore me and give me morohine and end up sicker then i went in.. after 7 hours of all this they actually tell me “your gallbladder isnt infected anymore and you dont want a tired surgein, so we’re sending you home call and make an appt with your doctor and be happy in Canada you’d have to wait 6 months” i coudlnt beleive it they never even said it was infected ever till then … so now after many calls later here i am 6 weeks after this all started and still no surgery appt. they say that well be another 5-8 weeks.. and they’ll call me when they can fit me in.. i’ve been in total constant pain for so long now and i hate Kasier if i had the money i would go to another ER.. but i dont…
wow, that sounds like a bad situation. I’ve had good experiences at kaiser, especially when I had my moto accident. (to the person asking if you were wearing a helmet, think about smokers, drug users, drunk drivers, hunters, unprotected sex, all the other risky stuff people do. why not ban anything but going to work (by bus) and staying home?
seems the state of healthcare is that you really have to watch out for yourself, as there are 2 many cracks to slip thru.
I was a member of Kaiser Permanente off and on for about 20 years. Originally in southern California, and later in central California, which, Kaiser considers to belong to northern California.In truth, in that time I DID meet several Physicians, PA’s, and Nurse Practitioners that knew what they were doing, and gave a damn.But some incidents come to mind. The first being in the spring of 1996. One morning while getting ready to go to work I discovered that I was constipated. But I hand a BM the next day, and I dismissed it. But the next morning I’m constipated again. In addition, I am starting to have ever increasing amounts of pain. I go to work, and by midafternoon, I am running a very high fever (103, and in a lot of pain. I call the Kaiser appointment desk, and was able to make an appointment with another doctor as mine was out sick. Well, after inserting the device up my rectum, and asking another doctor for his opinion, they decide that I have an inflamed Hemorrhoid. But as a precaution they want me to get lab work done, as well as an X-Ray. The thing here was that it was almost five PM, and time to go home. Well, I get the labs, and X-rays done, and as directed I go to the ER, and of course no one knows anything about it. The doctor in the ER looks at me, and once again sticks the device up my rear, and says that I should get some perperation H, and take Tylenol for the pain . I go home and speak with my girlfriend a retired RN temporarily living in Florida. She suggests that I go to see the doctor I was seeing prior to joining Kaiser. I wake up the next morning in VERY severe pain. I called my former physician. I was surprised that he remembered me, and after I explained to him what my problem was he told me to come right over. A nurse took my vitals, and when the doctor came into the room he saw what my temperature was, and gave me two extra strength Tylenol, and demanded that I take them right away. I did, and after a very thorough exam, he determined that I had a seriously infected rectal absess. He said that he was not equipped to do this in his office. But, he wrote a not to Kaiser telling them what he found it, and where. He also gave a prescription for antibiotics, and pain meds.
The following Monday I went to member services, and raised the roof. One of the member services reps looked at me and tried to intimidate me by saying “you don’t really want to make a big issue over this do you?” I said, as long as I was taken care of no. He called my primary doctor, and after showing her the note the outside doctor had given me, and after she finished making her own examination she stated “I can’t believe those guys couldn’t find it”. She then picked up the phone and called a doctor in General Surgery, and sent me over there. When I signed in they wanted to collect another Co-Pay from me, and I refused. The surgeon made his own examination, and upon finding it looked at me and asked “How did you get this?” I looked at him and said he was the physician and not me, he should tell me. To that he was annoyed. But later that night he operated on me, and drained the abscess. In the morning he came in to look in on me, and changed the dressing covering my rear. To accomplish this, he had to literally suture the rubber sheet to my legs so it wouldn’t fall off. When I got home, I called my attorney. I knew that Kaiser would fight tooth and nail if sued, but I was so angry that I didn’t care. But my attorney told me that while everything Kaiser did to me was in fact Medical Malpractice, I did not have a case because in the end I wound up OK. So, I tried to find another lawyer who would try to sue Kaiser anyway. I sent Kaiser a letter indicating my intention to sue, as well as demanding that I be reimbursed for the expenses incurred at the outside doctor and pharmacy. At first, Kaiser refused to even consider, much less pay this. But, after hearing my intention to sue they agreed to pay that if I agreed to drop my intent to sue.
As I said, I met some very nice, and very competent people, but a lot of idiots as well.
I know I’m writing years after these posts,but after having my own horror story yesterday,Im going to. I’m so mad at what they did to you! What is this about profiling patients,especially women? We shouldn’t have to blame ourselves for how we look when we’re at our worst and begging for a little help and humanity!!! Strange how they can sexually harass and treat like were ugly scum at the same time. I finally demanded to only see female doctors no matter how long the wait. Had to. Really? Now I’m only treated like a judged drug seeker,right? These places seem to think it’s all systems go,in terms of weirdly abusing women.Not all of them,but why do I have to try to determine how I’ll look while I can barely stand so that I don’t get profiled as..what?
And helmet,smoking,anything, we are here now and yes,HUMAN. They make me WANT to smoke,seriously,it’s dangerous! They get off on easy prey because.they CAN.
I really think these ER monkeys should have to get therapy to tackle their rage and projected shame issues before they are allowed out of the gate,not to mention polite society.
It is indeed heartbreaking,I’m so sorry, hope you’ve come out the other side in spite of Kaisers toxicity and grave inhumaine harm.