Kaiser Permanente Success Factors: Unique in the Healthcare Industry

The Kaiser Permanente Healthcare System is Fully Vertically Integrated in that It Has a Health Insurance Company that Collects Premium for Its 12 Million Members and It Has 39 Hospitals, 600+ Clinics and 22,000 Doctors that Directly Provide Care for the Members as Well.

Kaiser's Success Factors Are Unique... Other Hospital Systems and Insurance Companies Do Not Have Them:

1) Alignment Around Their Mission

2) Clinical Leadership

3) Aligned Incentives

4) Integrated Information Technology

Other Hospital Systems and Health Insurance Companies Might 'Say' They Have These Things, But Kaiser Puts Their Money Where Their Mouth Is and DOES THEM.

Kaiser Permanente May Be One of the Best Examples of Successful Vertical Healthcare Integration in America.

Sources:

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#HealthcareCosts #HealthcareIndustry #KaiserPermanente

[dfirth]

I have been a Kaiser member for 25 years. I'm a two time cancer survivor thanks to them and now I'm being treated for a third cancer. People who complain about Kaiser don't understand their history. Kaiser medical started out treating the Kaiser shipyard employees during WWII. Many of the employees came from the Midwest (Dust Bowl) and had never seen a doctor in their life. Henry J. Kaiser hired a young doctor right out of Loma Linda Medical School. This doctor had radical ideas. He said it's cheaper to keep people healthy than to wait until they are sick. Kaiser was attacked after WWII and called communist. Kaiser doctors for many years were not allowed to join the AMA. Critics say Kaiser is "assembly line medicine". That's how they keep costs down. Kaiser was the first to have electronic medical records. When I get Lab tests I can see the results online, usually in a few hours. Several weeks ago Kaiser was hit with a ransomware attack. Kaiser IT isolated the network and began restoring the nationwide system from their backups. Most members never noticed any major problems and after 48 hours or so the system was fully recovered.

[pamelapressney]

You need to show this presentation to Steve Shields, Greg Adams and Christian Meissner. I started working for kaiser in 1985. This is not the same company that labor has worked with for decades to insure success. The current leadership is destroying the mission you refer to...No longer listening and working together with the people who do the work. With 44 billion in reserves they don't spend that money to provide safe staffing. They complain about the cost of labor...don't see them cutting their multimillion dollar salaries. It is the knowledge and skill and retention of the Healthcare professionals whose wages they have proposed to cut that insure quality care. We USED to work in "partnership." Now what they call partnership is "we tell you what we want and you must agree with us."

[michaelwilde]

update - its been about 14 months now since my injury. I was finally able to get different insurance, went with Ambetter. They immediately put me in physical therapy. They got it done in a week - something Kaiser couldn't get done at all. I still have pain, but I am improving. Someday I may get back to normal and have a full recovery from my experience with Kaiser.

[floridagators]

Thank you for the great videos and information. I am a new clinical leader coming from a bedside nurse and your videos really help me understand complex topics beyond my nursing education. Thanks again doc!

[odoherty]

what i find interesting about Kaiser as a broker, is member feedback... When someone has a bad experience at Kaiser, they blame the entire system rather than the particular physician, nurses, staff etc. If a member has a bad experience with BlueCross, United Healthcare...or even at a Hospital system like Providence, they hardly ever blame the entire system for the challenges. Over the years i've seen our clients have challenges with virtually every insurance carrier, hospital etc....I have found by far the least amount of problems in our Kaiser client base. It's not that they don't have their problems, and possibly they are getting worse as one responder indicated, but taken as a whole we have better member experiences with Kaiser than the rest of our book of business. (Oregon and SW WA)

[georgia]

Just curious on where you got the Kaiser stats? Would love to look further into this myself as well as other hospitals

[samk.]

Your content is just unique. Keep them coming Dr

[doggieGZ]

It's funny listening to people complain about Kaiser's healthcare experience, when they're one of the only entities left that doesn't have Private Equity and profit-driven leadership in power driving the operations of the hospital. Kaiser's literally the only medical hospital system left where Doctors and Nurses aren't being forced to see beyond their maximum capacity of patient volume just to maximize profits for the hospital's investors. I've worked as a physician in both the profit-driven sector (aka "Private" sector) and for Kaiser. And at Kaiser we literally see HALF the patient volume then we do in the profit-driven sector of medicine, with the same, if not, BETTER compensation, benefits, etc.

[meghan]

Let’s talk about how many strikes Kaiser is involved with. Let’s not forget that.

[bambiefawn]

Unfortunately the only health insurance I could get through my employer is Kaiser. When I became a new member of Kaiser, I didn't see a doctor, and my medication was filled over the phone, which sounds ridiculous to me.

[josephtucciarone]

Thank you the your thorough analysis. I have been with Kaiser for almost 60 of my 65 years. I want to move away for the Peoples Republic of CA, but want to stay with Kaiser of similar.

[ccrncindy]

Please, DON'T GET KAISER if you have a choice. Not only will they kill you, they'll torture you, first.

[ccrncindy]

Trying to get rid of Kaiser Medicare plan. Any help would be appreciated. They're killing me!

[anujkhosla]

Excellent videos and do very helpful!! Thank you sir

[Bob-lkfu]

I wouldn’t recommend Kaiser to anyone after the incredibly negative experiences of myself and my family in the recent few years.

While I really like my current and past Oncologists, in general the specialty care I’ve gotten at Kaiser has been horrifically bad. Dealing with Kaiser San Diego Urology was the worst medical experience of my life. It’s medicine via email and phone from doctors and staff who are too busy to care.

Cancer sucks but having cancer and having to deal with that department made it suck so much more. Not what you need with a new Stage 4 cancer diagnosis.

I won’t even start on the experience of a beloved family member who died recently of cancer in Northern California. At her time of dealing with a terminal illness, Kaiser was a nightmare to deal with from a care perspective. In the end, she pleaded that we not take her back to Kaiser. Fortunately, the home hospice agency was amazing and she died peacefully at home surrounded by those that love her.

The biggest thing I’ve found with so many doctors and staff at Kaiser is complete indifference. Not all, but in my experience, a significant number of people. Why should they care about the patient experience? Why should they work hard at their jobs and go the extra mile for patients? It doesn’t really matter if patients are happy or not, there are patients waiting for six months to see them. Kaiser keeps sending people and the Members have no choice, like the care experience or not, it’s the KP conveyor belt model of care delivery.

Once doctors get voted in to the medical group, it’s almost impossible to get rid of them. There are no consequences for bad performance and they keep on getting full schedules if they are a good doctor or not so good doctor.

You absolutely have to strongly advocate to get what you need at Kaiser. If you don’t, you’ll die rather than thrive.

[michaelwilde]

Kaiser left me disabled to save a few hundred bucks. It's been about ten months since my life ended, Kaiser doesn't care. All I needed was physical therapy for a ruptured tendon, but Kaiser said no. Now I can't do the work that I used to. I can't do the hobbies that I used to. When I'm laying awake all night in pain with no life I just hate Kaiser more and more. Kaiser is evil, they will keep you from medical care. I think this really does make Kaiser unique in the industry. They are the only insurance company I've seen who will really go out of their way to block your access to treatment.

[LatchKeyKid_]

Yet Kaiser will not accept new members with medi-cal in California 🙄 Talk about discrimination

[gogreen]

Kaiser treated me for the same type of pancreatic cancer tumor that Steve Jobs had. It was discovered in 2002 and surgically removed. I'm still here. Steve Jobs isn't. Btw, Steve Jobs and I were born in 1955 and were diagnosed only a year or two apart. Steve Jobs was a billionaire. I am not!

[sharroncalundan]

Neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer. Adenocarcinoma is about 90%. Poor outcome. What the two of you had is highly curable. Unfortunately Steve Jobs went to India for 9 months to “juice”. Had to have surgery upon return. At that point he would only have a few years. He made error in his life. Listen to your physicians, do your research & ask questions. Remember, doctors went to medical school, you & I did not. Am 75, RN, worked til 72, worked for Kaiser for 45 years. Side note, grew up in Sunnyvale -Cupertino, California. Went to Homestead High School, so did my brothers. One brother & Steve Jobs were same age, hung out together in the 1970’s. Smoked marijuana behind a Denny’s Restaurant. Youngest brother went out with Patty Jobs in high school. Just people. Am older, helped in community events with Steve Wozniak’s mother. Interesting times, just ordinary people.

[jupirena]

... I've asked before but got no answer. I'll ask one more time and if you refuse to answer my question again, I will assume that you are hiding from the public major information about THE PERMANENTE AND KAISER.
Q: what's the reason behind calling "patients" MEMBERS ?