KAISER INCOME TAX STORIES

from: http://cbs5.com/health/local_story_314204226.html
mirrored at: http://www.kaiserpapers.info/news/ca/dangerouskaiser.html

Josephine Frances Hart, a San Jose resident who loved to play with marbles, died July 26, the 
same day of the error. Her official cause of death is still being investigated by the county coroner's 
office, but state health investigators determined that a nurse failed to check the medication label.
See: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/13079133.htm
text mirrored at:
http://www.kaiserpapers.info/news/ca/josephinehart.html

Passalaqua suffered a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain that worsened and he died two 

days later, the suit said.
See story at: http://www.kaiserpapers.info/news/ca/bumphead.html

When Linette McCan's 7-year-old son Gregory came to her complaining of a stomachache last 
Saturday, she never dreamed her child would be dead the next morning.

She says doctors in the emergency room at Kaiser Permanente's Walnut Creek hospital ignored 
Gregory as he suffered from what turned out to be meningococcal sepsis, an infection that led to 
his death Sunday morning.

Prosecutors said Barker's account was impossible because the doctor had been performing surgery 
at the time - 4 miles away at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center on Geary Boulevard. Hospital 
records showed he'd been working in the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit until 5:35 p.m. that day.

Washington's trial ended when he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and carrying 
a gun with an altered serial number. A judge sentenced Washington to more than eight years in prison.

The FBI began an investigation into Barker's testimony. A federal grand jury indicted him last year on 
three counts of perjury and one count of making a false statement to law enforcement.

Barker pleaded guilty to one count of perjury on Wednesday, admitting he knowingly and intentionally 
provided false testimony in Washington's trial.

The sentencing of Barker is scheduled for 11 a.m. Feb. 8 He faces a maximum of five years in prison 
and a $250,000 fine. Barker is not in custody pending sentencing.

Kaiser spokeswoman Meg Walker said, "Dr. Barker does practice here at Kaiser Permanente in 
San Francisco, and we are reviewing this latest development."

Kaiser says it will finally pay fine of $1,000,000.00 levied by Department of Managed Health Care 
in 2000./Nov. 2002     http://fines.kaiserpapers.info/kaiser1milliondollarfine.html

A panel of medical specialists from Kaiser Permanente has ruled against John and Alicia Bennett's 
request for insurance coverage for transplanting healthy umbilical cord cells into their sons Hunter, 4, 
and Tommy, 2.

The boys and their sister, Ciara, 6, suffer from a rare condition known as Sanfilippo syndrome, which 
causes progressive damage to the heart, bones, joints and respiratory and central nervous systems. 
It is usually fatal by age 13.

Because of a $1-million research donation from Kaiser Permanente, two Amador County boys with 
a rare genetic disease may soon get experimental transplants that offer the only chance to save their 
lives.

Kaiser, the state's largest HMO, had refused for months to pay for umbilical cord-blood transplants 
for Hunter Bennett, 4, and his 2-year-old brother, Tommy. Their 6-year-old sister, Ciara, also has the 
disease, but is not eligible for the transplant because the illness has progressed too far.

The HMO argued that the transplants themselves could be life-threatening and had not been proved 
to work. But, after an onslaught of media coverage, Kaiser agreed to donate $1 million to Duke 
University in North Carolina for research into the children's condition, known as Sanfilippo syndrome. 
Duke can use the money to cover the boys' medical costs there.

Technically, the HMO's decision does not set a precedent or change its position on covering the 
experimental treatment--but it allows the family to pursue its only hope.

Debi's family said doctors from Kaiser Permanente in Fontana haven't explained to them 
why the then 41-year-old Victorville woman suffered severe brain damage following a week 
of the cancer treatment.

Three HMOs--Kaiser Permanente, Pacificare and Health Systems International--will soon control 
health care for 9 million of the 13 million Californians in HMOs. Kaiser is singular among these 
titans in receiving an annual tax break of more than $200 million because of its nonprofit status. 
Such status requires the provision of charity care, but does not preclude Kaiser from diverting 
profits to the doctors who own Kaiser's for-profit medical group and receive dividends for 
Kaiser's penny-pinching.

While Kaiser was once the gold standard for affordable, high-quality HMO care, it has recently 
led the race to the bottom in health quality, clinging to its tax break even as it acts like a for-profit 
company. Kaiser has been the leader in reducing patient stays and has steadily cut back on 
preventive services by limiting mammograms, pap smears and prostate cancer screenings.

An infamous Kaiser memo announcing an eight-hour discharge policy for newborns and their mothers 
(since outlawed) was called "Positive Thoughts Regarding the Eight Hour Discharge." It encouraged 
staff to offer such justifications as "hospital food is not tasty" and "unlimited visitors Authorities investigate 
allegations that a Kaiser surgeon in San Luis Obispo hastened a possible donor's demise.at home."

The state Department of Corporations, which oversees HMOs, has done an audit of Kaiser, released 
in August, and found that medical decisions at Kaiser do not appear to be "independent of fiscal and 
administrative considerations." In other words, money is dictating medicine. This is against the law.

Specifically, auditors found that "clinical financial review nurses have the authority to overrule physician 
decisions." Bureaucrats can, in effect, practice medicine without a license. The auditors also found that 
25% of non-network emergency room treatment for Kaiser members was denied unreasonably.

Kaiser has been ordered to answer for these abuses by February, but it will no doubt resist. Kaiser's 
own 1995-97 Southern California strategic plan, which includes such reckless care-cutting as replacing 
skilled nurses with unskilled attendants, is based on a financial goal that amounts to being able to quote 
the lowest price to all corporate and individual purchasers. Prevention, which used to be the signature 
of HMOs, is barely mentioned in the document, which reads more like a corporate prospectus than a 
plan for health policy. This "nonprofit" company has made more than $2 billion in net operating income, 
i.e. profit, over the last three years. Today Kaiser spends $60 million annually on advertising and 
marketing, more than a 700% increase over four years ago.

While the state has tried to resolve cases with Kaiser and other HMOs "quietly," only a forceful and 
public response will prevent the kind of reckless indifference that threatens patients like Charla Cooper. 
Cooper will lose her ability to have children if Kaiser does not provide $70,000 in specialist care, 
available only outside the Kaiser network, that she requires for a pre-cancerous cervical condition 
and ovarian complications. HMOs like Kaiser do not like to provide such out-of-network care, even 
when no qualified specialist exists at the HMO, because of cost.

Cooper has stated: "Kaiser missed a diagnosis, did not return my phone calls, scheduled procedures 
three months after they were needed and returned test results up to two months after the tests were 
performed." Fertility specialists whose advice Cooper sought on her own have urged that she receive 
special surgery and fertility treatment unavailable at Kaiser, but Kaiser bureaucrats have steadfastly 
refused to authorize such treatment. Cooper's chances of becoming a mother fade every day. Her 
complaint, marked "urgent" by department investigators in July, is still sitting on the desk of Department 
of Corporations Commissioner Keith Bishop.

Bishop has charted a harmfully cautious course with HMOs since his appointment by Gov. Wilson. 
And indeed, the Department of Corporations has issued only one fine in its 20 years of HMO oversight 
for improper denial of health care. But HMOs like Kaiser understand money most, and that is what they 
must be forced to pay when they violate state law and abandon patients like Cooper. The penalty 
should be enough to give a billion-dollar behemoth an incentive to live up to its obligations under the 
law and its debt to taxpayers who underwrite that $200-million annual bonus.

Credit: Jamie Court is the director of Consumers for Quality Care, a Los Angeles-based watchdog group

My thanks to Ellen Goodman for "The Latest HMO Outrage: Drive-Thru Mastectomy" (Commentary, 
Nov. 18). Last week I became an uninformed victim of this inhumane practice at Kaiser-Permanente, 
Los Angeles.

I want to acquaint women with my firsthand experience of this degradation and urge my fellow HMO
patients to contact their Washington legislators.

My mastectomy and lymph node removal took place at 7:30 a.m., Nov. 13. I was released at 2:30 p.m. 
that same day. I received notice, the day before surgery, from my doctor that mastectomy was an 
outpatient procedure at Kaiser and I'd be released the same day. Shocked by this news, I told my 
surgeon of my previous complications with anesthesia and the fact that I have a cervical spine 
condition, which adds an additional consideration for any surgery. The pleasant doctor assured 
me that I'd be admitted, for the night, if I experienced excessive pain or nausea. This was noted 
in my chart.

In the recovery room and the holding area, I felt like a wounded soldier in a hospital tent during the 
Civil War. I was surrounded by moaning patients and placed directly next to a screaming infant. 
When I finally found a voice, I shouted, "Get me out of here!" A nurse flitted by, shot me a disapproving 
glance, and commented, "Some folks just don't know when to be grateful." This was the ultimate humiliation.

While in a groggy, postoperative daze, swimming in pain and nausea, I was given some perfunctory 
instructions on how to empty the two bloody drains attached to my body. I was told to dress myself 
and go home. My doctor's written chart instructions for a room assignment, if I developed acute nausea 
or pain, were ignored by the nursing staff. Obviously, the reassurance had been given to placate me at 
the time of my discussion with the doctor but everyone knew an overnight stay was against Kaiser 
hospital rules. Everyone knew, except me. I had no time to mourn the loss of my breast or regain a 
sense of composure.

This experience was especially shocking because four years previously, I had undergone a hysterectomy 
and received excellent treatment and a four-night stay at the very same Kaiser facility.

We women can allow ourselves to be discounted or we can demand more from the HMOs. No civilized 
country in the world has mastectomy as an outpatient procedure.

VICTORIA BERCK

Los Angeles

* In Goodman's excellent column, every word of which I endorse wholeheartedly, she quotes 
Cindy Pearson of the National Women's Health Network as implying that women receive second-
class medical treatment just because of their sex, by asking, "What part of a man's body would 
they amputate in same-day surgery?" I can answer that one from experience: the testicle(s).

When I had my testicle removed for testicular cancer it was admittedly not as serious a surgery 
as radical mastectomy, but it did involve general anesthesia, surgery and the loss of a body part 
to which I was deeply attached. And it was only covered as outpatient surgery by my HMO, male 
though I be (still).

MICHEL MASSON

Santa Barbara

MEDICAL RECORDS

updates to this story:

http://www.ktvu.com/news/4516615/detail.html

April 27, 2005 - Hit-And-Run Nanny Sentenced To 30 Years To Life
http://www.ktvu.com/news/4422543/detail.html

Regulators Fine Kaiser Unit $200,000 -  June 21, 2005
The state imposes the penalty for breaching patient confidentiality in exposing health records 
on the Web. by Debra Vrana - Times Staff Writer

The council contends that when Kaiser learns of a suit or potential suit by a patient, its legal 
department opens and studies that patient's private medical records without notifying the patient. 
This alleged review by Kaiser's legal department is inappropriate, said the council, because Kaiser's 
legal employees have no role in the patient's health care. 

"If a patient has a claim against Kaiser for negligently cutting off a little finger, why should a clerk in 
Kaiser's legal department be able to review the patient's entire medical file, which might include 
information on unrelated sexual, psychiatric or personal problems ...?" asked Martin Blake, one of 
the lawyers who filed the suit in Alameda County Superior Court for the council on Monday. 

John Metz, the chairman of the council, said that Kaiser has put its own legal interests above the 
protection of its patients' privacy. "It is just wrong," he said in a statement

If Kaiser Permanente is your health care provider and you live in Petaluma or other 
North Bay spots, your bill may be a little late this month.

A box of 1,200 September account statements sent by Kaiser's Southern California 
data processing center to its direct mail company somehow ended up all over the 
streets of San Francisco yesterday.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1998/09/19/BU70537.DTL

PATIENT DISEASE RELATED TO UNCLEAN PRACTICES AT HOSPITALS OR 
UNSTERILIZED EQUIPMENT

Some Kaiser patients positive for hep - April 9, 2005
Equipment wasn't sterile but may not have been source of hepatitis
There have been "a small number" of positive hepatitis test results from Kaiser patients who 
were alerted that unsterilized equipment was used during procedures in South Sacramento 
and Redwood City, a hospital official said Friday.

http://www.kaiserpapers.info/kpgvethemhep.html

SARAH NOME STORIES  - ELDERLY PATIENT EVICTED FROM KAISER HOSPITAL

Kaiser losing patience with patient By Nancy Isles Nation
San Anselmo firebrand Sarah Nome, often at odds with City Hall, now is taking on 
Kaiser Permanente from her hospital bed.

KAISER LOST BODIES STORIES

Kaiser not forthcoming over mix-up at morgue  - 
Kaiser tried to cover up a missing Priest's body replacing a elderly woman's for a cremation!

Oakland -- Oakland couple has filed a lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente Hospital 
claiming that the HMO lost the body of their stillborn daughter. 
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1999/04/21/MNR3BA6.DTL 

ARBITRATION STORIES 

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-malpractice29dec29,1,2913626.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_NEWS_nkaiser28.58021.html
 mirrored and preserved at: http://californianews.kaiserpapers.info/newborn.html

Kaiser loses ruling in death of newborn
ARBITRATION: An attorney says the doctor used standard procedures to treat
the birth defect.

12/28/2002

By DOUGLAS E. BEEMAN
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
 

A Murrieta couple has won a $1 million arbitration case against Kaiser Permanente stemming 
from the death of their newborn daughter nearly three years ago. An arbitrator ruled that the 
doctor who performed the surgery to repair a birth defect used poor judgment when complications 
arose after the operation.

Under California's law limiting general damages in medical liability cases, the award was reduced 
to $250,000.

KAISER EMPLOYEE MOLESTER STORIES

By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg and Christina Jewett -- Bee Staff Writers

Published 8:27 pm PDT Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Dr. Scott Takasugi, known by neighbors for his lavish Halloween parties, dapper clothes 
and luxury car collection, was being investigated for sexual exploitation of patients when 
the cache was found.

Complete story at above link and mirrored for historical purposes at:

http://www.kaiserpapers.info/rocketlauncher.html

mirrored for historical purposes at: http://www.kaiserpapers.info/takasugi.html

IMPROPER PROCEDURES FOLLOWED IN PELVIC EXAMS, SIX WOMEN ALLEGE

- Feb. 19, 2003 

http://www.kaiserpapers.info/raul3.html

Copyright 2005 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

Nurse who fondled his patients gets 240 days
Man also receives 3 years' probation

San Diego Union-Tribune, The (CA)
November 9, 2005
Author: Dana Littlefield; STAFF WRITER

Estimated printed pages: 2

A nurse convicted of fondling patients at two local hospitals was sentenced yesterday to 240 
days in jail and placed on three years' probation.

A jury found Julius Ariston Villareal, 33, of Chula Vista guilty Aug. 17 of six counts of sexual
battery on an unconscious person for inappropriately touching three male patients. He had worked
as a licensed vocational nurse at hospitals in San Diego and North County for a decade.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Peter C. Deddeh also ordered Villareal to work 20 days in public
work service and register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Villareal, who had been free on $50,000 bail, was taken into custody immediately after the hearing.

Deputy Attorney General David Songco said the incidents occurred at Sharp Coronado Hospital
and Healthcare Center and Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Diego between September 2003
and June 2004. Villareal was fired from both hospitals after the patients complained.

He was also fired from a nursing job at Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas in 1996 after he was
accused of similar acts. However, he did not face charges in connection with that incident because
the statute of limitations had run out, Songco said.

According to court documents, a 28-year-old patient who had been admitted to Sharp Coronado for
severe pneumonia reported that Villareal touched his genitals twice during sponge baths and also
sexually propositioned him.

The victim did not immediately report the incident because he was embarrassed, according to
court documents.

Another male patient who was treated for an infected dog bite at Kaiser told authorities that Villareal
sexually touched him on several occasions during his hospital stay last year. A third patient, also from
Kaiser, came forward after seeing news reports of Villareal's arrest.

All of the patients told authorities they were heavily medicated when the incidents occurred.

Villareal repeatedly denied the accusations to his employers and investigators, according to court
documents. He told a probation officer that his immediate goal after the sentencing hearing was to
get a job.

The prosecutor said he plans to immediately initiate proceedings to revoke Villareal's nursing
license.

Dana Littlefield: (619) 542-4590; dana.littlefield@uniontrib.com

Edition:  1,7
Section:  LOCAL
Page:  B-3

Index Terms: ABUSE; CRIME; FIRINGS; HOSPITALS; MEDICINE; SAN DIEGO; SENTENCES;
SEX; TRIALS

Copyright 2005 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

Record Number:  UTS1911355

Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA)
July 18, 1997
Author: The Associated Press
A doctor from Rolling Hills who once coached tennis star Pete Sampras faces 16 charges of
molesting boys he met through his medical practice, authorities confirmed Thursday.

The allegations against Dr. Peter Fischer, a pediatric endocrinologist, involve four boys who
were 13 to 15 years old at the time, said Deputy District Attorney Eloise Phillips.
http://californianews.kaiserpapers.info/peterfischer.html

SAMPRAS' EX-COACH IN TROUBLE

Times Union, The (Albany, NY)
July 23, 1997
Author: Associated Press

Estimated printed pages: 1

DOWNEY, Calif. -- A doctor and former coach of tennis star Pete Sampras was ordered 
Tuesday to stand trial on charges that he molested young male patients.

After a preliminary hearing that included testimony from the alleged victims, a Downey Municipal 
Court judge ruled prosecutors have enough evidence to proceed with the case against
Dr. Peter Fischer.

Fischer, who is free on $460,000 bail, was ordered to appear Thursday in Norwalk Superior 
Court for arraignment.

In a separate case filed in February, Fischer, a pediatric endocrinologist from Rolling Hills, is
charged with three counts of committing a lewd act on a child and three counts of penetration
by a foreign object.

HOSPITALIZATION CUTTING STORIES

Kaiser struggles to cut cost of care
- Lisa M. Krieger, EXAMINER MEDICAL WRITER
Monday, September 25, 1995

CALIFORNIA -- Kaiser Permanente, once the undisputed leader in low-cost health care, is 
struggling to stay competitive by hospitalizing fewer patients and rewarding cost-effective 
doctors, internal documents show. 

"We're competing in a very hot market," said David Pockell, executive vice president and 
regional manager of the Kaiser's Northern California region. 
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/e/a/1995/09/25/BUSINESS9917.dtl

In Northern California, Kaiser doctors operate under a different incentive program. It includes 
modest bonuses to physicians if the facility where they work meets certain budget and quality 
goals.  

The giant Oakland-based HMO denied the move was intended to placate critics of the bonus 
plan, who had said the system essentially rewarded doctors for rationing care. Instead, officials 
said the budgetary goals were met for 1995 -- so the incentives were not necessary for 1996.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1995/12/20/BU72074.DTL

At least that's the impression staffers got when they heard Kaiser attorney Alice Barkley's 
voice- mail message to San Francisco's city planning office, warning that if she didn't like the 
agency's forthcoming environmental ruling on Kaiser's Geary Street project, ``you may have a 
staff that is dead by tomorrow.'' 
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1996/09/27/MN72628.DTL

A Los Angeles group called Consumers for Quality Care, interpreting a Kaiser business 
plan, charged that the HMO plans to dramatically reduce the number of patients hospitalized, 
limit prescriptions of high-cost drugs and continue to prescribe more medication, apparently in 
lieu of needed treatment.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1995/09/27/BU11469.DTL

KAISER AND DHS/HHS/CMS STORIES