No negotiations scheduled. Workers to continue walking picket lines every weekday starting at 8 a.m. throughout Southern California
Glendale, Calif. – Kaiser Permanente’s state-mandated contingency plan for providing timely and appropriate mental health care during an ongoing strike by its behavioral health professionals is woefully inadequate, without any detail for how the state’s largest HMO is providing critical mental health services for its 4.8 million members from San Diego to Bakersfield.
The 3-page document submitted to the California Department of Managed Health Care just prior to the start of the strike, provides no information about the volumes of replacement services Kaiser anticipates having to provide and no information about how many workers from outside of Kaiser can be relied on to provide it. The plan itself is barely over a page with a one-page introduction.
In addition to being inadequate, the plan is also incomplete. In the final sentence of the plan, Kaiser writes that it anticipates “it will amend this Amendment Filing the week of October 21st with more real time information.” However, as of late last week, no amendment had been filed.
The plan filed for Southern California contains far less detail than a plan Kaiser filed during the 10-week strike by mental health therapists in Northern California two years ago, during which Kaiser was cited by state regulators for canceling 111,803 appointments.
“This isn’t a plan, it’s a recipe for mass appointment cancellations, just like what we saw in Northern California,” said Sal Rosselli, president emeritus of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, the union representing Kaiser mental health professionals in Northern and Southern California. “More than 2,000 workers are striking and Kaiser patients are not being seen as the law requires.”
In the event of a strike, Kaiser remains legally obligated to provide timely and appropriate care for all of the medically necessary behavioral health services required by its members. If care that normally would have been provided by striking workers must be replaced, and Kaiser cannot replace it in-network, then Kaiser must arrange to replace it with out-of-network care.
“Spelling out in detail exactly how Kaiser plans to meet its obligations to provide mental health care during a strike is the entire point of the strike contingency plan, yet Kaiser’s plan completely fails to satisfy that objective,” Rosselli said.
Picket Lines begin at 8 a.m. and run through 2 p.m. On Monday, workers will picketing be at the following locations:
- Los Angeles Medical Center (LAMC), 4867 W. Sunset Blvd.
- San Diego Medical Center, 9455 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
- Fontana Medical Center, 9961 Sierra Ave., Fontana
- Anaheim Medical Center, 3440 East La Palma Ave., Anaheim
On Tuesday, workers will be picketing at the following locations:
- Riverside Medical Center, 10800 Magnolia Ave., Riverside
- Woodland Hills Medical Center, 5601 De Soto, Ave. Woodland Hills
- Kaiser Permanente Alton/Sand Canyon Medical Offices, 6650 Alton Parkway, Irvine
- Baldwin Park Medical Center, 1011 Baldwin Park Blvd., Baldwin Park
There will be a lunchtime rally with community and elected leaders at all strike locations. Click here for a full list of picket line locations and times for the first two weeks of the strike and here for a fact sheet about the strike.
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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.
