Kaiser Permanente Fined Following Mismanagement of Kidney Transplant Program

By Marianne Madden

Published on August 30, 2006

In the face of patient lawsuits and pressure from regulators, Kaiser, the nation’s largest HMO, closed its Northern California kidney transplant center in May.

California’s Department of Managed Health Care found that Kaiser lacked administrative capacity and failed to properly run its fledgling kidney transplant program. The mismanagement had disastrous results; in 2005, only 56 kidney transplants were performed at Kaiser’s San Francisco center, leaving twice that number of people to die waiting for a kidney. Meanwhile, at other California transplant centers, the number of patients who received kidneys was double the number who died.

Kaiser was charged with lacking proper administrative oversight, having too few employees to manage transfers from the University of California, failing to provide its patients with timely access to specialists, and neglecting to properly respond to patient complaints.

The problems began in 2004, when Kaiser decided to treat patients in-house who they had previously referred to University of California hospitals at Davis or San Francisco. This resulted in one of nation’s longest kidney waiting lists. Patients died while the HMO failed to process their paperwork or ignored requests from patients’ relatives to donate a kidney.

State regulators are continuing to investigate patient grievance procedures at Kaiser. Their findings may lead to further penalties for the HMO.

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