Digging in its heels, Kaiser official tells reporter Southern California is “a different geographic market,” won’t match NorCal standards
For 17 weeks, Kaiser Permanente has slow-walked negotiations with its nearly 2,400 mental health therapists, social workers, psychiatric nurses and psychologists, who went on strike in October seeking to end entrenched disparities that leave Kaiser patients struggling to access clinically appropriate care.
Now the giant HMO appears also to be slow-walking the governor.
As of Wednesday, Kaiser officials still had not responded to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s written request asking both union workers and Kaiser management to enter “focused mediation” aimed at ending the strike that has left Kaiser less capable than ever of meeting the mental health needs of its 4.8 million patients from Bakersfield to San Diego.
Despite extensive media coverage of Newsom’s February 6 mediation request, Kaiser’s chief negotiator told workers during a bargaining session Wednesday that he was unaware that the governor had requested mediation or that union workers had immediately accepted it.
“It’s stunning that Kaiser has no urgency to reach a fair agreement even though there is mounting evidence that patients have never faced more challenges in accessing care,” said Sal Rosselli, president emeritus of the National Union of Healthcare Workers. “We’ve made it clear to the governor that we’re ready to bargain every day to reach an agreement, and we have mediators in mind, who we believe can help broker a deal.”
Inferior mental health care in Southern California
In 2022, with prodding from the Newsom Administration, three days of focused mediation produced an agreement ending a 10-week Kaiser strike in Northern California that included provisions to increase staffing levels and give therapists more time for patient care tasks that can’t be done during therapy appointments. However, Kaiser management has refused to extend those gains to Southern California, creating in essence a two-tiered mental health system, in which patients in Northern California have better access to care and mental health professionals have more time to meet the needs of their patients.
Overall, Kaiser staffs approximately one therapist for every 3,000 members in Southern California compared to one therapist for every 2,000 members in Northern California, forcing more patients in Southern California to navigate external provider networks whose therapists can’t easily communicate with their Kaiser doctors and specialists.
In ongoing negotiations, Kaiser mental health professionals aren’t asking for anything that Kaiser doesn’t already provide their counterparts in Northern California, including pensions for all workers and the same 7 guaranteed hours for full time therapists to perform patient care tasks that can’t be done during therapy appointments. The lack of time for those tasks, such as responding to patient calls and emails, devising treatment plans and preparing for appointments, results in burnout, forcing therapists to leave Kaiser.
In an interview last week, Kaiser executive Dawn Gillam doubled down on maintaining the disparity between Kaiser’s Northern and Southern mental health systems, telling ABC7 that “we are two different business models… and we have two different geographic markets that are very different.”
“I’d like Kaiser to explain what makes us in Southern California different and why we don’t deserve the same level of mental health care as Northern California,” said Marisela Calvilo, a striking therapist in Los Angeles. “Whether you live in Northern or Southern California, you’re spending a lot of money for Kaiser insurance, so you should get equal care.”
Patient care continues to suffer
After the next scheduled bargaining session on President’s Day, Kaiser’s negotiators have said they won’t hold any additional bargaining sessions until March 6. Meanwhile, Kaiser patients in Southern California continue struggling for care, Since the strike began, NUHW has filed more than a dozen complaints with state and federal regulators documenting instances of:
- Patients who want to retain their therapists being placed on 30-day appointment waitlists even though Kaiser is required to provide medically necessary follow-up appointments within 10 business days by law.
- Kaiser canceling psychotherapy groups for thousands of patients including mothers with postpartum depression and people with substance use disorders.
- Kaiser violating industry standards by sending patients with severe conditions to an outside virtual provider that is only capable of treating patients with mild-to-moderate conditions.
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The National Union of Healthcare Workers is a member-led movement that represents 19,000 healthcare workers in California and Hawai’i, including more than 4,700 Kaiser mental health professionals.
