Change is never fun - new changes at my husband's company

[turkel]

You can purchase Kaiser insurance direct from Kaiser. Check their website. As an ex Kaiser nurse I cringe at the thought of recommending them. After 10 years on Kaiser and most of her life my daughter still misses our Kaiser insurance. As with anything there are pros and cons. I can guarantee no doctor at Kaiser is ordering anything that they are not specifically authorized to order.

If you have a diabetic in the family or anyone with a chronic health issue that newer treatments are available I would definitely think twice before purchasing Kaiser insurance. Their motto is proven standard of care which does not include newer non generic medications or treatments, unless the cost benefit analysis is in their favor. Period.

I too have had difficulty adjusting to new insurance but overall I am confident I have better options available to me should I get sick.

 

[VacationForever]

You can purchase Kaiser insurance direct from Kaiser. Check their website. As an ex Kaiser nurse I cringe at the thought of recommending them. After 10 years on Kaiser and most of her life my daughter still misses our Kaiser insurance. As with anything there are pros and cons. I can guarantee no doctor at Kaiser is ordering anything that they are not specifically authorized to order.

If you have a diabetic in the family or anyone with a chronic health issue that newer treatments are available I would definitely think twice before purchasing Kaiser insurance. Their motto is proven standard of care which does not include newer non generic medications or treatments, unless the cost benefit analysis is in their favor. Period.

I too have had difficulty adjusting to new insurance but overall I am confident I have better options available to me should I get sick.

What a great post and right on target! Being forced to switched out from Kaiser after our physical move turned out to be the best thing to happen to us. My husband who is diabetic was immediately taken off of a cheapo generic and dangerous drug that could cause hypoglycemia and unneccesary stimulation of the pancreas to a newer, better and safer drug, i.e. Januvia. My earlier post on my own medical issue is now well under control and I am finally comfortable. My quality of life could not be better. I now have the best Allergist whom I have ever had.

 

[klpca]

You can purchase Kaiser insurance direct from Kaiser. Check their website. As an ex Kaiser nurse I cringe at the thought of recommending them. After 10 years on Kaiser and most of her life my daughter still misses our Kaiser insurance. As with anything there are pros and cons. I can guarantee no doctor at Kaiser is ordering anything that they are not specifically authorized to order.

If you have a diabetic in the family or anyone with a chronic health issue that newer treatments are available I would definitely think twice before purchasing Kaiser insurance. Their motto is proven standard of care which does not include newer non generic medications or treatments, unless the cost benefit analysis is in their favor. Period.

I too have had difficulty adjusting to new insurance but overall I am confident I have better options available to me should I get sick.

I hear what you are saying. Before my husband got sick I was talking to my sister who has Kaiser. She was talking to a man at a party so happened to be a Kaiser doctor. He basically told her that Kaiser will do their standard treatment, but if you ask for something different they will do that as long as it's possible. We gave it the test. After my husband's surgery they told him that there was a 75% chance that the cancer would return within 7 years, and that we would do more treatment when/if it came back. My husband did his own research and learned that if you did salvage radiation combined with ADT it greatly improved the survival rate. So he asked for his care to be moved from urology to oncology then asked for this specific treatment. His doctor (oncologist) pretty much said fine, we can do that. The radiation was done through UCSD (gold standard in our area) and our doctor was the head of the radiation oncology department at the university. So based on this single experience we were happy. Of course a single experience is just one data point but we got the exact treatment that we wanted.

For us to buy into Kaiser would be over $20k out of pocket so we're going with UCSD. I think that at this point it's our best option.

One more point, my first Kaiser rheumatologist (close to retirement age) kept me on that horrible drug for four years even though I complained every visit. Once I got a younger doctor (also Kaiser) I was immediately put on a different medication that was so much better for me. So I think that I had both the old Kaiser and the new Kaiser experience. The old experience was pretty awful.

 

[turkel]

I can honestly say there are always exceptions to the rule. My mother has Kaiser. Had a mark, dark patch on her shin which was biopsied eleven year prior to seeing a Kaiser dermatologist. She was lucky the Provider had a resident with him the day of her appointment. Provider was not concerned over the dark patch, the resident spoke up and said he felt mom needed another biopsy. Turns out it was melanoma.

The good news is she is fine. The great news is that resident quite possibly saved her life. Who knows if any other Dermatologist would have caught it or listened to a young resident.

Kaiser is not all bad, nor is it any where near perfect. It is a well oiled machine. Pretty cut and dry though if they decide a treatment is not available. They provide certain services at their local hospital but some specialties are quite far. A nurse I worked with had to drive her spouse over 50 miles in nasty traffic to get the specialist her spouse needed. No local options.

Kaiser will outsource if they have to, I would say your extremely lucky klpca that your spouse was sent outside of Kaiser. San Diego clearly is different than my experience in OC.