Are Kaiser Permanente's execs headed to Sing Sing? San Quentin?

Last week, several of Kaiser Permanente’s patients and the "Courage Campaign," a grassroots organization in California, held a press conference where they slammed Kaiser for systematically withholding critical mental health services from patients.

During the past two years, state investigators have fined Kaiser millions of dollars for committing "serious" and "systemic" violations of state law by withholding care from thousands of mental health patients, falsifying patients' appointment records, and violating mental health parity laws. (Los Angeles Times, "California Again Slams Kaiser for Delays in Mental Health Treatment," February 24, 2015)

Kaiser's violations are also highlighted in class-action lawsuits that link the violations to multiple suicides.

Last year, Kaiser famously signed a secret agreement with its largest union, SEIU-UHW, which bars the union and its members from reporting patient-care violations to state regulators, according to a complaint NUHW filed with the California Attorney General.

What could possibly be causing Kaiser’s execs to turn their backs on patients with mental illness, who are one of our society's most vulnerable populations?

Profits, of course.

In addition… a reader has sent along a photo that offers interesting clues about the elitist corporate culture that permeates Kaiser's top echelon of fatcat execs.

 

Part of Kaiser's 17.8-acre administrative office park in Pleasanton, Calif.

The photo comes from Kaiser's administrative offices in Pleasanton, Calif., a 17.8-acre suburban campus that the HMO purchased from computer giant Oracle Corp. in 2008 for upwards of $100 million. It's a sterile, glass-enclosed, tree-lined, corporate theme park that would make most people's stomach turn.

Just a few minutes away, Kaiser's CEO Bernard Tyson owns a multi-million-dollar, 6,121-square foot house with a swimming pool out back.

So… what's the clue about Kaiser's elitist corporate culture?

Apparently, Kaiser's execs at the Pleasanton corporate park decided they could score a few laughs at the expense of America's skyrocketing incarcerated population, 40% of whom are people with mental illness.

The US’s prison crisis is not typically considered a laughing matter. 

The US has the largest incarcerated population of any country in the world (one in 99 adults are living behind bars in the US). African-Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites.

But for Kaiser's country club execs, this is apparently a laughing matter.

At their corporate office-park utopia in aptly named Pleasanton, Kaiser decided to name the conference rooms after America's most notorious prisons: Sing Sing, San Quentin, Angola, Attica, Leavenworth, Cook County Jail, Alcatraz, etc. 

Check out the picture from Kaiser's corporate offices at 5810 Owens Drive in Pleasanton.

A list of Kaiser's conference rooms at 5810 Owens Drive, Pleasanton

Apparently, Kaiser's execs are enjoying endless laughs as its overpaid managers -- dressed in three-piece suits and armed with lattes, gold watches, and iPhones -- parade through corporate conference rooms named after the prisons housing millions of the US's most marginalized residents.

"Can you meet at 2:00pm to discuss next quarter’s profit targets?"

"Sure, where are we meeting?"

"How about Sing Sing? Or maybe you'd prefer San Quentin? In that case, ya better give the wife a heads-up cuz I hear people usually do 25 to life in San Quentin. Ha, ha, ha.”

There’s nothing quite like an arrogant HMO that decides to thumb its nose at millions of largely poor, black, brown, and mentally ill people caged inside our prisons.

Here's a humble suggestion. 

Kaiser’s execs should pull their iPhones out of their asses and read this newly published article in The Atlantic: "America's Largest Mental Hospital Is a Jail." It begins: "At Cook County Jail, an estimated one in three inmates has some form of mental illness. At least 400,000 inmates currently behind bars in the United States suffer from some type of mental illness…"

Next, Kaiser might wanna change the name of its conference rooms to something like, uh, "Mental Health Parity" or "Cultural Competence." 

Finally, Kaiser should spend some of its $15.5 billion in profits to actually fix its notorious problems that deny thousands of Kaiser's own members from getting adequate mental health care.

Breaking: SEIU-UHW and California Hospital Association Are Busted as Secret Deal Is Outed

Remember Dave Regan's secret deal with the California Hospital Association?

Regan signed this so-called "21st Century" deal with hospital executives more than a year ago, but he's refused to show a copy to SEIU-UHW's membership, Executive Board, staff, or the public.

Now, we know why.

NUHW got ahold of a copy and posted it on its website!

It turns out that Diamond Dave did lots of wheeling and dealing when he met with his pin-striped pals in the executive suites of California hospital corporations.

Regan, for example, proposed to permanently ban SEIU-UHW members from conducting strikes, according to the records. And he agreed to allow hospital corporations to "flex" workers by requiring them to take on more work.

He also signed a far-reaching "gag clause" that blocks SEIU-UHW and its members from reporting patient-care violations to health inspectors and other government oversight agencies. (Hmmm... so much for SEIU’s claims to stand up for patients and the public.)

 

CHA's Duane Dauner

According to NUHW, Regan’s gag clause violates workers' rights… along with four California laws. Yesterday, NUHW filed a complaint with the California Attorney General to block the hospitals and Regan from implementing illegal gag clauses. 

NUHW's complaint (posted below) contains nearly 100 pages of internal records including e-mails, meeting agendas, minutes, plaintive letters from Diamond Dave to hospital CEOs, and details of Kaiser Permanente's involvement in the dirty deal, including that of Kaiser exec Greg Adams.

NUHW's complaint takes Kaiser to task for negotiating and signing the deal just months after it was fined $4 million by state investigators for violating multiple mental health laws, including falsifying patients' appointment records and forcing patients to endure lengthy, illegal waits for appointments... which are reportedly connected to multiple suicides.

That's not all.

According to a copy of the CHA deal, Regan also agreed to prohibit SEIU-UHW from "pursuing, sponsoring or supporting any legislation, initiative, regulatory, or other efforts that are adverse to the interests" of hospital corporations.

And Regan agreed to prohibit SEIU-UHW from engaging in any "Anti-Employer Activities," which are defined in a lengthy paragraph of lawyerly text.

SEIU's Regan tossed patients under the bus.

Regan also agreed to ban SEIU-UHW from issuing any communications (e.g., press releases, leaflets, letters, website posts, letters to the editor, etc.) that "raise concerns about hospital pricing and executive compensation in health care."

Remember… just months ago, Regan stood at podiums, surrounded by patients, and criticized hospital corporations for charging patients $21 for an aspirin. 

It turns out that was pure theater... and the patients were mere pawns in Diamond Dave's game. Soon thereafter, Regan tossed California's patients under the bus in order to expedite his backroom deal with hospital CEOs and the CHA's CEO Duane Dauner.

Stay tuned. More details will follow as Tasty digests the trove of documents released by NUHW. Here's NUHW’s complaint along with the 100 pages of exhibits.

  NUHW's Complaint to the California Attorney General regarding Gag Clauses in Legal Agreement between S...

Who Butters Dave Regan's Buiscuits?

John Nelson, Kaiser's VP of Public Relations

Today, SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan suffered a smackdown that leaves little doubt about who butters his biscuits.

Two months ago, as 3,500 Kaiser employees prepared for a weeklong strike to protest the understaffing of Kaiser's mental health clinics across California, Regan took the unprecedented step of teaming up with John Nelson (Kaiser Permanente's Vice President of Public Relations and Communications) to launch a coordinated P.R. attack against the workers.

An article in "Modern Healthcare" featured matching quotes from Regan and Nelson dismissing clinicians’ claims about the understaffing. 

Members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers are accusing healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente of understaffing its mental-health services, and they're threatening to strike if their issues aren't resolved… But Dave Regan, president of the SEIU-UHW, which represents 45,000 Kaiser employees across the state, dismissed NUHW's concerns, saying that the staffing problem “was a limited one and is completely solved.” (Modern Healthcare, “Kaiser Mental-Health Staffing under Fire Again,” December 4, 2014)

 “Completely solved."

Hmmmm.

This morning, government investigators released a 33-page report detailing the results of their months-long investigation into Kaiser's mental health services. They cited Kaiser for multiple violations of state law, including understaffing its mental health clinics and forcing patients to endure lengthy, illegal waits for care. Investigators are contemplating additional fines against Kaiser – that’s on top of the $4 million fine that Kaiser already paid last September.

 

Dave Regan, SEIU-UHW

In an article published today by the Los Angeles Times, Shelley Rouillard (the Director of California’s Department of Managed Health Care) directly refuted Regan's earlier statement:

For the second time in two years, California regulators have faulted HMO giant Kaiser Permanente for causing mental health patients to endure long delays to get treatment… In Northern California, patients didn’t get initial or follow-up appointments within the required time frame of 10 to 15 business days in 22% of the records reviewed… “That is not a good performance,” Rouillard said. “Fundamentally it comes down to there are not enough providers in the Kaiser system to serve everyone who needs mental health services." (Los Angeles Times, “State again faults Kaiser Permanente for mental health treatment delays,” February 24, 2015)

So… Regan not only pimps for the Boss, he knowingly lies for the Boss, and gladly throws patients and healthcare workers under the bus. 

Hmmm. 

If you're a member of SEIU-UHW, wouldn't that make you a bit nervous?