Posted on 09/15/2022 7:06:44 PM PDT by nickcarraway
As Kaiser Permanente therapists across Northern California enter the second month of an ongoing strike, a growing number of patients are saying they’ve been unable to get appointments during the work stoppage, despite the HMO’s legal obligation to provide timely access to mental health care.
The California Department of Managed Health Care, which launched an investigation into Kaiser’s behavioral health services last month, said its help center has received 100 complaints about patients struggling to access care through Kaiser between Monday, Aug. 15, and Saturday, Sept. 3, the most recent data available.
Lisa Rubio, who lives in San Rafael and has been attending weekly sessions with her Kaiser therapist for the past eight years, said her appointments abruptly came to an end in mid-August. Rubio described her therapist as her primary form of emotional support through a liver cancer diagnosis last year. Kaiser has offered her little assistance since the strike began, even as she awaits the results of an MRI and other tests related to abnormal growths in her liver. If the HMO were to offer her an appointment with a new therapist — which they haven’t — she isn’t sure she would take it.
Still, she doesn’t begrudge her clinician going on strike to fight for better working conditions.
“I could tell he was overworked. I’m a caregiver and 63 years old. I know when something’s wrong,” she said. “I kept asking him why he didn’t look good. One day during session, he finally told me, ‘I’m not sick, I’m working nights.’”
Alexis Petrakis, a child psychologist for Kaiser who works with patients in Petaluma and San Rafael, said she “did not expect to be on strike for this long,” but would not return to work until Kaiser improved upon its standards for patient care, insufficient staffing levels
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
It sure didn’t take long to go from inflation to strikes, did it?
How many of these problems were self inflicted by Kaiser?
I’m a doc and find this disgustingly immoral.
Try to work it out other ways before you hurt the patents.
8 years of weekly therapy ???
WTF
The doctors are kooks too.
Finding out way too many. Dear Lord.
Exactly my thought. Paying for a friend
Lol
Liberalism is a mental disease, so the need for therapists in the Bay area is very real.
How many have they been able to replace and a better question is what are the external conditions that caused this situation?
I hope they start going to (good) clergy.
Unions are a destructive force making any organization unable to compete with the private sector. Unions will do to Kaiser health care what they did to the auto industry in Detroit.
Our Kaiser facilities here on the Front Range of Co. still have the mask rule in place and guards at the doors to enforce them. You used to be able to walk through a set of doors from the hospital to the medical offices but they have them closed of because of COVID so you have to walk outside and around the building. It’s insane.
So her therapist was overworked and she was one of the people demanding work out of him.
HMO - Health mangled operation
Zoomers are addicted to psych drugs and therapists. Colleges are having to hire more therapists while parents scream that their kids want to kill themselves because they got a C on a paper. The wait lists for therapists is months and they are barraged with “You’re our only hope” requests that cause stress.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.