How to Get Excellent Care From Kaiser Permanente

Kaiser Permanete doctor

Kaiser Permanente has had some bad missteps when it comes to patient care. Although Kaiser Permanente has low prices, many fear that the medical care is substandard. That does not have to be true. If you take a few steps to get excellent medical care, you can get top shelf care from Kaiser Permanente.

Instructions

1. Pick a primary care doctor, which is one of the first steps after enrolling with Kaiser Permanente. Usually, Kaiser will give you a list of physicians to pick online. If you do not pick a doctor, one will be assigned to you randomly. You should not pick one like as if you're throwing random darts at a dart board full of doctors instead of numbers. What you need to do is to ask around to figure out which doctors are good.

   One way to ask around is to ask your co-workers about various doctors at the local Kaiser facility. Another way to check out doctors is to look at the phsyican's own website on Kaiser's website. Many doctors use a template with the same wording. Pick doctors who wrote their bio themselves rather than used a template. Those are the doctors that care the most about their patients. How much could a doctor care if he used a template to create his physician website?

2. Request a referral when needed. If you don't ask, you don't get. If you don't tell the doctor what's wrong with you, how can he give you a referral. Don't exaggerate your condition, but don't reduce the severity of your condition either. Kaiser Permanente is all about prevention, so they rather treat you early, but that can't happen unless you ask.

3. Ask for an adjustment to prescriptions if they're not working. Kaiser Permanente, like all HMOs, have a pharmacy formulary that doctors need to follow. Your doctor is not going to violate the formulary just because you ask, but he might request an exception if your drugs are not working. But in order for that to happen, you have to tell your doctor when drugs are not working after a few weeks or a month. You can send an email or leave a voice message to your doctor for this.

4. Request tests when necessary. This is MUCH easier with Kaiser Permanente than most other HMOs. Kaiser is all about prevention, and they can't prevent if they don't know about it. The doctors tend to sign off on tests because the medical group as a whole doesn't want medical problems to get worse. Kaiser would rather lower costs from catching problems early. This is unlike other HMOs that lower costs by denying drugs, denying tests, and denying early treatment.

5. Utilize urgent care and same day appointments. Kaiser Permanente facilities don't advertise urgent care and same day appointments due to abuse, but they do exist for bona fide urgent scenarios. For example, if you need to see a psychiatrist due to an urgent and severe psychiatric issue, all you have to do is call the office and tell them of the urgent issue. The office will make an appointment slot on the same day for you even if there is no room. If there is a true emergency, you should go to the nearest emergency room, even if it's not Kaiser.

6. Use Kaiser Permanente online appointment system to get same day appointments even for non-urgent medical issues. In some departments such as primary care and optometry, it is very easy to get same day appointments if you look up appointments on Kaiser's website. Depending on demand and luck from last minute cancellations, you may be able to see a doctor in the afternoon while you're surfing Kaiser's appointment system in the morning.