Warning about Kaiser Permanente

[Mary Jane W.]

Kaiser Permanente is by far the largest HMO in America.
Unfortunately it is the K-Mart of medical services.

As a patient you would experience many burdensome levels of
paperwork and people to go through before you could reach to
the bottom line: medical treatment.

Once you get there, if you are still alive, you will
probably be unlucky enough to be "cared" by the most
INCOMPETENT medical staff in the country.

Many medical staff at KP are with marginal qualifications
and therefore, could cause your existing condition to get
worse instead of better. The nice thing about KP is that it
has a massive group of administrative officers including an
army of legal teams, which serve the function of cover-up
and protecting the interests of KP - not YOU!

So, the wise thing to do is to avoid Kaiser Permanente - if
you can. After all it's YOUR life. Given the choice by your
employer, don't sign up for Kaiser Permanen. Sometime, your
HR people are given some "incentive" to convince you to
sign up with KP. Don't fall for this. Don't make the
mistake I did.

By the way, don't buy in to KP's fancy advertisement and
appearances. Being "big" does not necessarily mean "better".

[Curtis Ccr]

I moved to KP about 6 years ago. I was hesitant as I had
always heard about Kaiser problems - My wife (then live-in /
fiance) had been a member for quite a while and like them.

The complaints I've had are minor. No worse than I have had
about my previous health care providers.

We have six month old daughter now. I am quite happy with
the care our little girl has been getting. One thing I had
heard from Kaiser members before I became one was that you
need to know how to work their system as an adult - but they
are a great care provider for kids. They cover kids
extremely well. We had a hell of time picking a peditrician
to be our daughter's primary care doctor. We had several
great choices.

Ya know - I sort of view myself as just being a number at
Kaiser. But I don't have any real health problems. But I
have never had a problem getting attention when I need it.
My wife has more issues than I do and she has learned to
"work the system".

On the other hand. My grandmother had to deal with Kaiser at
91 years old. I don't even recall what was wrong with her.
My parents were not impressed with Kaiser's care for old
people - especially when docs don't really know what's
wrong. And they sent my grandmother to a third party nursing
facility that sucked. She eventually recovered - but it was
not real pleasant.