Switching to Kaiser insurance, need feedback

[Anonymous]

They refused a scan on my friend’s mom for years. She kept having terrible headaches. Turned out to be a brain tumor. I wouldn’t use them no matter how cheap they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had Kaiser for only 1 year (thankfully) as that was the insurance provided through my graduate school. After that 1 year, the school switched to BCBS. I did not live in an area with Kaiser hospitals, but all of my doctors were covered. The problems that arose were all billing-related and really crazy. They insisted that an annual physical was not covered by my insurance and kept charging me an astronomical amount for the visit. I refused to pay, contested, spoke to dozens of people at Kaiser over the course of several months, and eventually they relented. I heard the same story from multiple other students.

This is fake news. I have Kaiser and never get bills, ever. (other than the obvious health care deductions from paycheck). You have your co-pays (whatever they are - and there are no surprises, you know it ahead of time) and that is that. My daughter was at DC Children's for five nights with a very unpleasant, unplanned health issue, seeing multiple top notch specialists (Kaiser has an arrangement to outsource at Children's), and our co-pay was $100.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had Kaiser for only 1 year (thankfully) as that was the insurance provided through my graduate school. After that 1 year, the school switched to BCBS. I did not live in an area with Kaiser hospitals, but all of my doctors were covered. The problems that arose were all billing-related and really crazy. They insisted that an annual physical was not covered by my insurance and kept charging me an astronomical amount for the visit. I refused to pay, contested, spoke to dozens of people at Kaiser over the course of several months, and eventually they relented. I heard the same story from multiple other students.

Did you go to some random, outside doctor for your "annual physical" (that you independently, after some google research, decided was needed)? In that case, duh, of course is wasn't covered.

[Anonymous]

Kaiser system missed pediatric cancer diagnosis for my good friend's child. Dismissed symptoms after a few work ups/specialist visits didn't yield anything and said they were psychological. Got cancer diagnosis after switching insurance and going through the specialists/tests at a major university (child is luckily doing fine now after treatment). I would stay away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been with Kaiser my whole life, except for about 5 years in my 20s when I went with Blue Cross. I am a big fan and have received excellent care including emergency room visits, surgery, specialists, etc. The doctors respond to online messages, I can schedule everything online and order Rx online. They are progressive on women's and children's care (well visits, BC, etc) and preventative care like smoking cessation and flu shots.

The two things Kaiser is *not* good for are mental health care, and sleuthing unusual diagnoses. If you have a diagnosis they will get you excellent care, but they don't like to do Dr House tests for rare conditions.

I agree with the previous poster absolutely. We had Kaiser for >20 years and were overall thrilled with them. My son was bit by a copperhead, and the hospital bills were over $200,000 and we paid less than $500 out of pocket. But we switched away because they were completely incapable of providing consistent access to a single therapist, and for a teenager who is skeptical about the whole therapy concept, having to tell his story over and over to different strangers was a nonstarter.

The other thing that I'd flag, having had 2 babies with them, is that you have no idea who will be delivering you. It's whomever is on duty at the hospital that day or night -- and they'll switch mid-labor if their shift end. They explicitly encourage you to rotate through all the doctors for your OB visits to increase the odds that you'll have met them before you're actually in labor.

[Anonymous]

The other thing that I'd flag, having had 2 babies with them, is that you have no idea who will be delivering you. It's whomever is on duty at the hospital that day or night -- and they'll switch mid-labor if their shift end. They explicitly encourage you to rotate through all the doctors for your OB visits to increase the odds that you'll have met them before you're actually in labor.

+1 except they didn't even encourage me to rotate through OBs because there were so many that I'd never meet enough to adjust the odds.

I ended up delivering with a Kaiser hospitalist in a very complicated delivery. I really wanted to follow up with the delivering OB after the chaos of my delivery, but her shift ended and I couldn't get a follow up appointment because she doesn't have an office. My regular OB read my chart to me, but I have questions that will never be answered.

[Anonymous]

Agree with 20:50. We had about 8 OB's in our practice, so I cycled through them all for at least one appointment. On "game day", I was in labor/delivery for about 24 hours and had 3 on-call doctors. The first one was a guy I'd never met before, a very nice guy. I was sad that I didn't dilate enough on his shift! The second guy was a guy whose bedside manner I disliked so much that I told my ex I was going to hold the baby in vs. delivering with him. (sadly, my body did that all on its own.) The third guy was a guy who I'd seen before for an appt and hadn't particularly liked. He wasn't especially warm/fuzzy but he did a good job and everything went fine. (yes, I finally delivered.) I found out afterward he was a friend's long-time GYN and she loved him, so it's funny how everyone is different in their impressions of people.

So the takeaway for me was that with Kaiser or a similar HMO, you may not have much say who your doctor is for your labor/delivery. For me, that's fine. For others, it might not be fine.

[Anonymous]

I tried Kaiser for a year. The convenience of going to a building with everything you needed was great.

However, when I hurt myself from weightlifting and asked for physical therapy/massage/chiro care, the doctor would only give me pain medication. F that! That's not what I asked for. I wanted a cure or a partial cure, not a band aid for the symptoms. At that very moment, I resolved to switch asap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with 20:50. We had about 8 OB's in our practice, so I cycled through them all for at least one appointment. On "game day", I was in labor/delivery for about 24 hours and had 3 on-call doctors. The first one was a guy I'd never met before, a very nice guy. I was sad that I didn't dilate enough on his shift! The second guy was a guy whose bedside manner I disliked so much that I told my ex I was going to hold the baby in vs. delivering with him. (sadly, my body did that all on its own.) The third guy was a guy who I'd seen before for an appt and hadn't particularly liked. He wasn't especially warm/fuzzy but he did a good job and everything went fine. (yes, I finally delivered.) I found out afterward he was a friend's long-time GYN and she loved him, so it's funny how everyone is different in their impressions of people.

So the takeaway for me was that with Kaiser or a similar HMO, you may not have much say who your doctor is for your labor/delivery. For me, that's fine. For others, it might not be fine.

I dont think this is uncommom for many OB pratices. I delivered my first with CWC and had three doctors who I'd never met during my labor and delivery. They were all from the other CWC location, so even thoug I'd rotated through the OBs at my office, I didn't know anyone at the hospital.