The much bigger story today is that George Halvorson is once again proving that he has destroyed accountability at Kaiser Permanente: instead of paying a $25,000 fine for an egregious medication error that led to the death of a baby, he’s ignoring the fine. Read the story over at Kaiser Thrive. I’ll have [...]
A year ago this week, Kaiser Permanente was called to task for its practice of rescission, the retroactive termination of health insurance coverage. In many cases, coincidentally, Kaiser Permanente and other insurers will initiate a rescission investigation when someone has just been diagnosed with a serious illness, perhaps a serious and expensive illness.
Now that [...]
I’m away from Southern California at the moment, but my thoughts are with everyone there. A close friend sent me an email this morning calling the situation “surreal.” The photographs and video footage I’m seeing really do seem unimaginable.
I know there are a lot of folks from the San Diego area who check [...]
In 2003, when Christine Cassel joined the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Board of Directors, she was also selected to chair the Board’s Quality and Health Improvement Committee. Since she took over, there has been a continuous stream of serious lapses in the quality of clinical care at Kaiser Permanente. Despite significant concerns raised [...]
In his latest weekly update, George Halvorson insists Kaiser Permanente has no “glass ceiling.” Mr. Halvorson’s spin couldn’t be further from the truth, sadly. WellPoint and Blue Shield of California both have many more women among their senior executive ranks than Kaiser Permanente. How disappointing that, instead of using his energy to [...]
The Los Angeles Times today has a number of letters to the editor that were written in, most praising the paper for its in-depth coverage of important health issues at California hospitals. One, though, criticized the paper’s editors for not printing more positive stories about Kaiser Permanente:
The [Devin Valenzuela] story is the latest in [...]
Ever heard of the so-called Foundation for Support of Health and Development in Africa? No? Me neither. It was a supposedly not-for-profit organization that was involuntarily shut down by the Louisiana Secretary of State. Do you think it had any connection to a so-called CentralHealth of Louisiana, Inc.? Which was [...]
This is the third Who Will Be Kaiser Permanente’s Next CEO? entry.
“The Health Ethics Trust, a division of The Council of Ethical Organizations, named Vicky Gregg, president and CEO of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, as its 2007 Fellow of the Trust for her accomplishments and leadership in advancing health care ethics and compliance.”
You guessed it. [...]
(…it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it…)
Last week, I said I would write a series of posts under the title: “Who Will Be Kaiser Permanente’s Next CEO?” The response I received from folks inside Kaiser Permanente was overwhelming: it’s time for George Halvorson to go. I wrote last week that [...]
Robert and Lilly Balaka-Long. Lehna Brewer. Mychelle Williams. Paris Bessard. Now, Devin Valenzuela.
The front page of this morning’s Los Angeles Times has the chilling story of baby Devin Valenzuela. Baby Devin was the second baby, a boy, born in April to Sarah Valenzuela. Unlike his twin, though, Baby Devin [...]