Kaiser Permanente Faces Scrutiny Over Mental Health Care and Nursing Home Closures

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Fred Seavey, a researcher with the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), was quoted in a Capital and Main article discussing the ongoing delays by Kaiser Permanente and the state in agreeing on an action plan. This follows a $200 million settlement aimed at addressing the mental health care and behavioral health service deficiencies at Kaiser. The settlement stipulates that Kaiser must hire a third-party consultant to help develop a program to rectify these issues, which the Department of Managed Health Care has cited numerous times over the past decade. Seavey remarked, “Our state’s largest health care provider, 9 million enrollees, is violating multiple laws and they don’t even have a corrective action plan in place after 10 months.”

Governor Gavin Newsom of California vetoed SB 1432, a bill that would have delayed the implementation of earthquake safety standards for hospitals. According to Becker’s Hospital Review, the bill would have allowed hospitals to apply for a five-year extension, moving the compliance deadline from 2030 to 2035. This deadline was established after the 1994 Northridge earthquake to ensure that all hospital buildings in California can remain operational following an earthquake. The California Hospital Association, which lobbied for the delay, expressed disappointment with the governor’s decision.

Local media in Humboldt County, such as Kym Kemp, MSN, and Lost Coast Outpost, have been reporting on NUHW's news release questioning Providence's decision to close the county’s only in-patient acute rehabilitation center.

Coverage by the North Bay Business Journal, Hospice News, and Becker’s Hospital Review highlighted an agreement reached between Providence and Sonoma hospice workers to settle an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) complaint.

CalMatters reported on the scheduled closure of the birthing center at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. The outlet has been documenting the closures of maternity wards across California, noting that 56 hospitals have ceased delivering babies since 2012, which represents 16% of the state's general acute care hospitals. These closures disproportionately impact Black, Latino, and low-income communities, which already face some of the state’s worst birth outcomes.

The Biden administration reaffirmed its commitment to enforcing mental health parity with a new proposal aimed at ensuring health insurers provide coverage for mental health care on par with physical health conditions. Stat News reported that the new rules will require insurers to act on existing analyses to ensure equitable coverage. The regulations prohibit more restrictive prior authorization for mental health services compared to physical health services and close loopholes that previously exempted state and local government-sponsored plans from these requirements.

In a letter published in the Humboldt County online news outlet, a former patient of St. Joseph’s Acute Rehab Unit, Fran Ransley, urged Providence to keep the Eureka facility open. Ransley criticized the idea of outsourcing rehabilitation services to Brius, citing their history of poor care and financial misuse. NUHW has also voiced concerns about Providence’s decision to close the unit.

The San Francisco Chronicle detailed new research by University of Southern California health economists, which found that Sutter Health began using anti-competitive contracting practices in the early 2000s. These practices led to Sutter charging 30% more than other comparable hospitals. The "all or nothing" contracting practice compelled insurers to either contract with all Sutter hospitals in a region or none at all, a tactic that has been the subject of several lawsuits alleging market abuse to inflate prices.

Skilled Nursing News reported that Kaiser Permanente will permanently close its last nursing home in California, resulting in 249 job losses. The San Leandro facility, set to close by mid-November, has seen a steady decline in patient numbers over the past 11 years. Kaiser confirmed the closure in a statement.