First , i have been a member of Kaiser N.Cal. for over 10 years.
What is Kaiser insurance and hospital policy on some simple annual test, say a male prostate test? "Annual". Yet in all those years, my GP/PCP/Primary Care doctors REFUSED to do a simple, glove-up and nurse, prostate test !! In over 10 years , not one ! Why did that statistic slip thru CR's fingers !?
How about a major test, for men, like the colonoscopy? Kaiser says, in writing, it should be done "every 10 years" to catch it early if there is early cancer. The most famous surgeons in Ca. recommend every 5 years. Yet in over 10 years, Kaiser N. Ca. REFUSED to do one colonoscopy, instead sending me a 'fecal sample bag' in the mail and telling me to 'fill it, and mail it back' !! We are paying huge co-pays for this lousy low level of preventative care !?
Ok, how about referral issues, how does Kaiser N.Ca. handle say male , orthopedic surgery referrals? They send you to the same office, at the same hospital, and the same doctor but his understudy MD !! And Kaiser calls that a "good second opinion"!!, with the senior doctor outside the door , listening to the jr. MD saying the same thing, which in my case was a blatantly wrong diagnosis of a partial tear of the thigh quad. muscle, "just walk, don't run, and it will heal itself", when it was a complete tear and to fix it needed immediate surgery. Kaiser ducked that surgery cost, keeping all those high copays, by MISDIAGNOSIS !!
So how common is Mis-diagnosis at Kaiser? What are the real numbers? Does anyone really know, even the U.S. Government? Certainly not C.R. Doubt it. I went to a non-Kaiser local famous orth. surgeon, and he told me the truth:"it is a complete tear, feel the big hole in your thigh top area, so it is too late now after a week to operate and fix it because the muscle torn ends have retracted to far."
How does Kaiser handle you moving to another provider, do they send all your records as they are legally required to do now? No. Even to the V.A. hospital system !! They only sent the phone records, NOT ANY OF MY MEDICAL RECORDS !! And yes, i am a Vietnam Veteran. Not that the U.S. govt really cares.
How does Kaiser N.Ca. do with major injury and surgery, you might ask?
Lousy !! I fell off a ladder at night in the back yard ,picking oranges after dinner, and split my heel open.
Mom drove me , bleeding and wrapped in 3 bath towels, to Kaiser San Jose ER, where i waited and waited for almost an hour to be admitted and have the open heel wound cleaned and closed. No pain meds. No ice pack. Not even try to clean it ,,for HOURS!
Then at midnight and the new shift a doctor , "who had the right credentials" the other ER docs told me, put me finally in an operation room where i fell asleep and they started cleaning out the wound. I was told when i woke up that night that the wound would be "kept open to prevent infection" given antibiotics and sent home with $20 cola can-size containers of sterile saline solution and gauze to pack the open wound with,,, FOR 7 MONTHS, WITH MY FOOT IN THE AIR, OVER THE BACK OF THE DEN COUCH, AT MY PARENT'S !!
After 7 long months of Kaiser's orders to pack the open wound with sterile gauze in wet sterile saline solution, i was told by this same MD to "go away, we are done with you, open wound , unhealed,,,we are done!! And whatever you do , don't let it scab over !!" That is exactly what i did, let it scab over a few times,,, to get back to work!! It never got infected.
My employer was impatient and i had to send photos of the open wound to prove i was really injured off the job and unable to work. When i did go back to my job in SF i was punished by not getting normal hours of over 40/wk.!! Then this get-rich-quick employer in SF stole $10k of my pay for the next year, damaged my car with dents costing $2000 on the company lot, all in trying to get me to quit and not be able to collect EDD unemployment insurance,,, after being out sick for 8 months. My employer is/was not Kaiser but if they had closed the wound at first then i could have been back to work in a month, two tops.
