Kaiser Permanente Benefits

Kaiser Permanente is a not-for-profit health care insurer and provider. Those who subscribe to any of Kaiser's plans also receive care within the Kaiser system of hospitals and medical offices. As of June 2009, Kaiser operates 35 hospitals and 431 medical offices in nine states. As both an Health Maintenance Organization and a health care provider, Kaiser's focus with its patients is on prevention and wellness.

Individual Plans

Kaiser Permanente offers affordable plans to individuals needing to purchase their health care coverage. Although Kaiser offers a broad variety of options, there are three common types of plans.
Health Savings Account plans offer both coverage as well as an HSA, which allows you to put income into a savings account tax-free. Plan subscribers can later withdraw the money--also tax free--for health-related expenses. As a rule, HSA plans are some of the cheaper options, but they also have some of the higher deductibles.
Deductible plans require a subscriber to pay an annual deductible before HMO coverage kicks in. Annual deductibles can range widely from $500 to $5,000, and have varying co-pays and coverage levels.
Co-Pay Plans offer a fixed set of co-pays for services and usually little to no deductible. Typically, these plans have some of the higher monthly premiums, but also offer more comprehensive coverage.
Monthly premiums are based in part on age, gender and health history, and therefore may differ from subscriber to subscriber, even within the same plan type. Kaiser also has the right not to insure an individual based on his medical history and personal health risks.

Group Plans

Kaiser can come as part of an employer's health care benefits package.
Depending on the package an employer selects for its employee benefits, employees may or may not have to pay a monthly premium. In most cases, employees simply pay the co-pay amounts set by the plans. However, co-pay amounts vary based on the plan type.
Group plans, unlike individual ones, have no criteria other than employment with a participating company.

Other Plans

Kaiser also offers several special plans.
Medicare Advantage Plans allow Medicare participants to route their benefits through Kaiser.
Child Health Plans give parents an opportunity to insure their children even if the parents aren't insurable or can't afford insurance.
HIPAA Plans are for certain individuals who have been discontinued from group plans, have run out of COBRA coverage, or have been rejected for individual plans.
University and Four Year College plans are group plans for students enrolled in participating colleges.
Step Plans are for special assistance to families in need. They offer a discount to families who cannot afford the full premium, and allow them to increase premium payments annually over the course of one to four years until they reach full premium. Thus, lower-income families are given time to improve their situations and still maintain health care coverage with Kaiser. However, as of June 2009, Kaiser has frozen enrollment for these plans in most locations.
Dental and Vision Plans are also options through Kaiser.

Services

Kaiser Permanente's health care services must, except in emergency and certain preauthorized circumstances, be rendered at a Kaiser health care facility or office.
Kaiser operates full hospitals with everything from emergency and urgent care services to advanced surgery and labor and delivery.
For subscribers wanting or needing specialty care, their primary care physicians must make a referral for the patient to see the specialty departments within Kaiser. So, for example, if a patient wants to see a dermatologist, she may get care from one of Kaiser's dermatology departments after getting a referral from her primary care physician.
Physicians can simply enter the referral into Kaiser's computerized patient care systems and the specialty clinic then contacts the patient about an appointment.
In most cases, Kaiser will operate a hospital to cover a particular region, and then place smaller clinics in communities throughout the region.
Clinics and hospitals may offer dentistry and optometry, in addition to other medical services.

Wellness and Healthy Living

Wellness and prevention are a big part of Kaiser's focus for its members.
Kaiser offers its members free Healthy Living classes and programs with a huge variety of topics. Just a few examples are Advance Care Planning, Amniocentesis Workshop, Eat Well With Diabetes, Expectant Parents Series, Live Healthy 101, and Mind-body Health.

My Health Manager

Kaiser patients can interface with their health care provider via an online system. Through their web access, patients can email their physicians, view test results, view medical records, act on behalf of a family member (when authorized), place pharmacy orders and check on order status, schedule or cancel appointments, and manage their health plans.
Kaiser encourages patients to use the My Health Manager system--especially as a means to communicate with physicians and appointment schedulers.

References

• Kaiser Permanente Website
• Kaiser Quotes

Resources

• Kaiser Permanente Article