Kaiser Permanente

Poor service overall.
You can easily fall thru the cracks at Kaiser, get overlooked.

Some stories
One dept such as your doctor sends to to another dept but they give you wrong information constantly. Example. Dr said to call and schedule healthy eat classes and a review of my diet. I call and they say those have to be a referral. I ask Dr office again they say oh. And that's it

Dr sends me to sone various tests to check something, no follow up 4 months later... Hey so what do those test mean?

I went for a coming exam, followed instructions exactly. Right before I go in the nurse tells me I needed something that was not on the prep sheet and blamed it on admin mgmt for not writing it correctly but still forced me to wait for my test until I had WHAT SHE WANTED!

The people are nice, but the kaiser system is very bad and Very frustrating!

Terrible insurance. I've requested a handbook from them four times and they've never sent one, and I haven't been able to access it on their website. The reason is obvious: they don't want me to be able to prove they're not covering stuff they should be covering.

A Kaiser nurse gave me an injection on my hip that has caused major pain for more than 8 months. I filed several complaints to no avail. Kaiser will not take responsibility for causing me harm and pain! One of their doctors told me during my visit that the nurse caused nerve damage, but he didn't write this in the notes. This is so IRRESPONSIBLE for a major health system. I tried to go through the arbitration process, but there's a $150 fee that Kaiser charges. Kaiser can literally get away with negligence and harm to their patients by creating these kinds of barriers, and this is UNACCEPTABLE. KP needs to be more responsible with taking care of your patients and remedying any harm you cause to your patients!!! KP needs to take responsibility for your actions!!!

Not impressed with their level of care. Came in with gallbladder issues like all other hospitals they want me to live in pain daily. I thought kaiser was supposed to be a good hospital? Well they failed.

Kaiser is horrible! I have had tests misplaced. Had a dermatologist who refused to listen and when I asked her assistant to please ask the doctor to come back in the exam room so I could finish showing her what she had missed. The doctor told her to tell ne she was in a meeting. She then spent the time writing absurd things in my medical record, which was not an accurate account of the appointment, and influenced the poor care that I have received from her peers. I had to wait 4 months to be seen by another dermatologist. Kaiser's "Get Care Now" system is constantly unavailable, and after spending 2 hours trying to get help I just gave up and had to call an advice nurse. The Pharmacy is consistently out of my medication and I have to go their weekly to get my prescriptions. These are just a few examples of many challenges IO have experienced. I began my Kaiser Permanente Insurance over 20 years ago when they provided outstanding care. Now I will be leaving Kaiser because I cannot get consistent quality care.

By far the worst health insurance and care provider provider I have ever had. I've had so many bad experiences with them, so I'll just provide the top 6.

1. Want to see you psychiatrist? You'll only be able to see them 2 or 3 times a year because they're booked out 4-6 months between appointments. Each psychiatrist has about a thousand patients.

2. Want to see a specialist? Good luck. I told my primary doctor that I wanted to see a dermatologist about a couple skin conditions. He insisted I didn't need to and that he was good enough to handle it himself. Another time, I went in because my knee was hurting, which I had surgery on a few year prior. My primary said it was just because I'm overweight and just need to exercise more. I said I really would like to make sure it's not something more serious like so he wrote me a referral to get an x-ray. I scheduled it, went in to get it and found out I was going to have to pay $500. I left, then called to see why I was being charged so much. They said it was because he coded it a certain way and if he coded it differently, it would have only cost me $50.

3. I went to see a my primary doctor (different one than before) because I found a lump I was concerned about. He agreed it was very concerning and was going to write me an urgent referral so I could get an ultrasound. When I called to schedule it, the earliest appointment was over 2 weeks away. Call me crazy, but that doesn't seem like a very appropriate timeline.

4. Kaiser's online portal and general software system is awful. When I have a video appointment, they don't have a way to join from the online portal. I have to wait for them to send me a link to join. That doesn't sound too bad, right? Well, they have either sent me the link only via text message or not at all. So I have to copy the link over to my computer to do the appointment. Still not the worst? Well, when they have sent me the link, I get it 5-10 minutes AFTER my scheduled appointment time.

5. The pharmacy - what a disaster. When nothing goes wrong, it's fine. Unfortunately, I've had multiple terrible experiences with the pharmacy. One time, they said I couldn't fill one of my prescriptions because it was too soon, even though their system texted me saying it was time to fill. I told them I always pick up my prescriptions together so they should either both be available to fill or neither should be. They looked through their records and said I hadn't filled one of them for over 6 months, which I knew wasn't correct since I take these meds every day and get a 90 day supply every time. Plus, these meds require my doctor to write a new prescription every time I have them filled, which they shouldn't do if I was requesting a refill too soon. I ended up picking up the meds that were ready and having to come back a few days later to get the other.

6. My employer-sponsored coverage started at the beginning of the year. I hadn't received my Kaiser membership cards yet so I called Kaiser. I spent over an hour talking to 2 people from Kaiser, which ultimately ended with them saying, "you'll need to work with your company's HR because we don't see you in the system."
The next day, I asked my company's HR if there was an issue. They said it looked like everything was correct on their end and even sent me a screenshot of my info in Kaiser's system. I was now able to login to Kaiser's portal, but could only access Northern California, where I used to live multiple years ago. I had been a member of Kaiser Southern California for a couple years since then so I was very confused by what was going on. I called Kaiser back, spoke with a total of 4 people over a couple hours. The call ended with them telling me, "we changed something on your account so you should be able to access it now." I confirmed I was still not able to access Southern California and they said, "give it 24 hours and it should be fixed." The next day, it seemed to have been fixed so I went ahead and requested refills on my prescriptions. Later that day, I get a text saying one of my prescriptions is out of stock. Fine, I'll just go pick up the other prescriptions that are marked as ready. I go in to pick them up. The price is way higher than usual so I ask why. The pharmacist looked and said, "weird, for some reason it didn't go through the insurance. Do you want me to do that?" Obviously, I said yes. He then takes a while to try to run it through insurance with his manager, comes back and says my insurance only covers a 30 day supply so I'll have to pay out of pocket. I said, "I've been getting 90 day supply for years and it's always gone through." He looks and sees that's true so he talks to his manager for a while, comes back to tell me there must have been a change in the policy in the new year. I said, "fine, I need the prescription so I'll just pay out of pocket. 10 mins goes by so I ask what's going on. He replies, "Oh, we need to re-process it without the insurance." More time goes by. I see his manager talking to someone else about it. He comes back to tell me that they actually can't give me the 90 day supply at all and will need to start over completely to only give me 30.

Needless to say, I will not be staying with Kaiser any longer. I wouldn't recommend them to my worst enemy.

Kaiser is horrible! Space it is nearly impossible to get an appointment to see a doctor they recommend if you can’t to go to urgent care where you will sit for 5 to 6 hours and then maybe not even see a doctor. When you do get a chance to speak with a doctor You won’t be guaranteed any honesty one doctor I saw was too lazy to see me so he called me on the phone then wrote a slip out that he had seen me and then I was OK to go back to work. That is fraud and Kaiser is not concerned about it If you call customer service and they don’t like that you are upset they just simply hang up on you I have been waiting for over three months to get an appointment with a doctor that I saw in the past I’m not sure that I even have hope that’ll ever take place they’d rather just you go off some place and die

Kaiser is unfortunately sliding back to how it was back in the 70s and 80s when it was regarded as a low cost and generally crappy HMO.
Just today I had a virtual medical appointment with a disinterested young MD who rushed through the appointment, sounding disinterested and unengaged.

Later when I went to the local KMC to get my labs drawn I learned that the lab had already closed. I asked the folks at the Information Desk whether there was a nearby Kaiser that had later hours and none of them knew the answer. I did a Google search but couldn't find out the answer either but learned that the nearby San Leandro Kaiser was open 24 hours. I attempted to call them to confirm their Lab hours but after holding for 20 minutes hung up and decided just to go and see for myself.

When I showed up I asked the young man greeting patients at the door where the Lab was and was directed down the hall-- neglecting to tell me that this lab was closed as well....which I found out when I arrived and saw for myself.

I realize none of these issues are earth shattering but today's events represent a constant Customer Service experience I receive with Kaiser these days which is why I'm switching to a more expensive; but hopefully better provider at the end of the month.

Earliest appointment for telehealth appointment for a sinus infection is more than 3 days. This, unfortunately, is becoming increasingly the norm. Will be paying out of pocket at a local urgent care.

Kaiser permanente has given me consistently inadequate, even incompetent “care,” often rudely and always without any resolution to my health issues. The Woodland Hills, CA ER and hospital are atrocious and keep you uncomfortable and even in pain, alone in an extremely crowded little room in which I literally bumped into the equipment if I didn’t first move the heavy machines out of the narrow path to the bathroom. Well “alone” except for the second customer(you’re not treated like a patient) in the one-bed room with two beds in it. You can’t sleep all night with the extremely poor quality flattened air mattress and the extremely bad, arrogant attitude of “nurse” Chantel and useless Dr. James Smith who barely talked to me and never figured anything out. Chantel couldn’t remember all the questions she was obviously supposed to ask me so the boring and annoying interview by her took forever, then she never would check on me all night. The morning nurse was shocked that “nothing” was done!! So she diligently did everything that was supposed to be done the night before.