Kaiser Permenante to Open a New School of Medicine

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I'm actually very upset I'm missing it by only a couple years (hopefully lol).

I know one of the VPs of Kaiser and they're super excited about this. I think it'll be great.
 
"Kaiser will face tough competition from more established and better known medical schools in the pursuit of top students and faculty nationwide"

"Kaiser is clearly making a statement that they want to train doctors in their culture, philosophy and way of delivering care," said Steve Valentine, vice president and West Coast consulting leader at healthcare firm Premier Inc. "It won't be a fit for some students. They will still want UCLA, USC, Johns Hopkins."

Nah bro. i'm pretty sure EVERY APPLICANT will apply there
 
huh I had figured that cnucom was KP's foray into medical education. I figured wrong.
 
It makes a lot of sense. Kaiser already has hospitals and residency programs, and medical students and residents from top medical schools already rotate through many of their hospitals. So, setting up the clinical rotations would be quite easy. All they would have to do would be to set up the pre-clinical classes. They should be able to recruit professors quite easily from the many local medical schools, and they already conduct a lot of their own research. Jobs at Kaiser are already extremely popular among many ( but not all ) who want to practice in California, and presumably doing well at the Kaiser medical school would give their graduates a better chance at a job with Kaiser, which many would consider a big plus. Kaiser would be able to hire all of their own graduates every year without even noticing, were they so inclined, given how large they are and how many they hire each year.

Kaiser hospitals and clinics are already filled with recent grads of top schools, so getting qualified clinical faculty for guest lectures will be easy.


Cyberdyne 101 said:
@gyngyn, does this school sound legit?
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Why wouldn't it be? What's troubling you about this?
 
Career at Kaiser has become quite a demand and compensation is quite good, especially after retirement (Keogh, 401K, Common Plan, 2+ days a week working schedule as a retired partner emeritus if desired). What is most attractive is the fact that the physicians do not work for "Kaiser" but are a partnership (and "owner") in what is called Permanente Medical Group. This means you have no one to answer in your medical practice (that is no "approval" for anything you feel necessary to treat your patients).

The idea of the medical school is really to try to supply doctors to an organization that emphasize preventive care (a win-win for both patient and the organization).
 
cloudmurder1 said:
This is what I'm thinking. Isn't what Kaiser is doing a bad thing?
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I don't think it's a bad thing for US grads (both MD and DO) yet. But it's certainly adding to the squeeze on IMG/FMG wanting US residencies.

A U.S. med school grad who applies widely and has a realistic match list will get a residency barring some huge red flag. I just hope we don't see the day when there are more U.S. Med school seats than residency spots

Edit: but this is the way I feel about all new med schools opening not Kaiser in particular.
 
IgEdoc said:
Career at Kaiser has become quite a demand and compensation is quite good, especially after retirement (Keogh, 401K, Common Plan, 2+ days a week working schedule as a retired partner emeritus if desired). .
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A minor point in this context, but the medical group benefits and structure vary from region to region. While there is only one health plan, the physicians are divided up into several different regional medical groups ( eg Northern California, Southern California, Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, and a few more) and benefits vary among those different groups.
 
IgEdoc said:
This means you have no one to answer in your medical practice (that is no "approval" for anything you feel necessary to treat your patients).
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Is this actually true? I had heard criticism of KP that there are higher-ups that can say no to an MRI if they feel it's unnecessary and even some sort of 'quotas'.
I remember reading about a lawsuit that was tangentially related.
 
bc65 said:
A minor point in this context, but the medical group benefits and structure vary from region to region. While there is only one health plan, the physicians are divided up into several different regional medical groups ( eg Northern California, Southern California, Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, and a few more) and benefits vary among those different groups.
Click to expand...

that is very true but since the medical school will be in Southern California, my comment was only to describe SCPMG practice that the medical students will encounter
 
ChillDawg said:
Is this actually true? I had heard criticism of KP that there are higher-ups that can say no to an MRI if they feel it's unnecessary and even some sort of 'quotas'.
I remember reading about a lawsuit that was tangentially related.
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Not sure where that came from but the doctors at Kaiser are not hindered by any "higher-ups". All medical policies, including drug formulary are controlled by the physicians, not the organization. Even if the drug is not on the formulary, there is the exception clause a doctor can write and it's done, no questions asked. You need a stat CT or MRI - done, no paper work, no approval.
 
cloudmurder1 said:
This is what I'm thinking. Isn't what Kaiser is doing a bad thing?
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Why pick on Kaiser? What about all the other schools opening up each year? What about all the DO schools that open without their own hospitals for rotations? Kaiser will be able to open up as many residency slots as they have med students if they want to . Right now, they have relatively few residents, whether their own or those coming in from other hospitals.

ChillDawg said:
Is this actually true? I had heard criticism of KP that there are higher-ups that can say no to an MRI if they feel it's unnecessary and even some sort of 'quotas'.
I remember reading about a lawsuit that was tangentially related.
Click to expand...

Absolutely false. Doctors order whatever they want. There are no quotas. Certainly people might get criticized for quality issues, if they do surgery that isn't indicated, or fail to do surgery that is indicated, but that's for quality and is all within the medical group.

I suppose people might sue if they want something they didn't get, but that would be because the doctor didn't want to order it, and not because the insurance wouldn't cover it.
 
Nixon's misinformation doesn't change the reality of how Kaiser works. Not every HMO is designed the same way. Kaiser has always stressed preventative care and early intervention, precisely because doctors are on salary and not paid by procedure, so there is every incentive to treat early, but no incentive to perform unnecessary tests, procedures, or surgery. There's no advantage to delaying care or providing substandard care, because so many patients are with Kaiser from cradle to grave. The sooner and better they are treated, the better for everyone involved.

It's also a completely integrated system. The hospitals and doctors, primary care and specialists, inpatient and outpatient systems all work together. There's also no need for staff to negotiate with the insurance company, since the doctors decide on their own if procedures or tests are indicated.
 
AirplaneFruit said:
Can someone explain how Kaiser Permanente works and why they are so big? All those commercials that they spam make me think they're some cheap scam.
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its just an hmo (insurance group with a mutual exclusivity pact with a doctors group and a hospital group). They're big because they can focus on efficiency and marketing instead of having to deal with internal scuffling between insurance, doctors and hospital groups.
 
iDOliveinMD said:
Thanks for the information, I won't deny my lack of knowledge of the subject matter I just stumbled upon the video via a google search and found it interesting.
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Actually, that bit of tape that you cited was fascinating to hear. I had always heard that Nixon changed the face of medicine when he required that employers offer HMO plans to their employees. He did it based on the Kaiser model, which was the original integrated HMO. The "HMO"s that followed were very different in concept and execution, however. Anyway, hearing that tape of when the transition actually took place was very illuminating. Thanks for finding that.
 
"Kaiser officials said the new school would include hands-on experience for students in clinics and hospitals, with a focus on primary care, the use of new technologies, and physicians’ role as part of a caregiving team. Kaiser executives said they haven’t yet settled on a site for the school’s campus. “The physician will not be sitting in a lecture hall like I did,” said Ed Ellison, executive medical director of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group. “It’s taking a different approach, turning the model almost upside-down.”

The fact that a bunch of premedical students view this as a positive step in the right direction worries me.

Physicians' roles in healthcare continue to be systematically dismantled, and we are apparently more than happy to allow it. The future of physician training is trending towards "teaching young physicians early that they are no more important in medical decision making than the janitor, and that they belong at the bottom of the totem pole like everyone else."

This is like Marlboro selling kiddie toys. Get them hooked at an early age when they're naive and have no clue what's going on.

By the way, the ridiculous "turn the classroom upside down" fad that has been permeating medical schools the past few years is absurd. A bunch of administrative educators float out some theories and then push them through to get some touchy feely journal articles published out of it.
 
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GuyWhoDoesStuff said:
"Kaiser officials said the new school would include hands-on experience for students in clinics and hospitals, with a focus on primary care, the use of new technologies, and physicians’ role as part of a caregiving team. Kaiser executives said they haven’t yet settled on a site for the school’s campus. “The physician will not be sitting in a lecture hall like I did,” said Ed Ellison, executive medical director of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group. “It’s taking a different approach, turning the model almost upside-down.”

The fact that a bunch of premedical students view this as a positive step in the right direction worries me.

Physicians' roles in healthcare continue to be systematically dismantled, and we are apparently more than happy to allow it. The future of physician training is trending towards "teaching young physicians early that they are no more important in medical decision making than the janitor, and that they belong at the bottom of the totem pole like everyone else."

This is like Marlboro selling kiddie toys. Get them hooked at an early age when they're naive and have no clue what's going on.

By the way, the ridiculous "turn the classroom upside down" fad that has been permeating medical schools the past few years is absurd. A bunch of administrative educators float out some theories and then push them through to get some touchy feely journal articles published out of it.
Click to expand...

In this case it doesn't really seem like they're actually trying to usurp any physician power, more just adding a one liner to a PR speech for the common folk who like to hear that their doctor is not some bigwig a hole.

Given my limited understanding of being a practicing physician (since I'm not one), but isn't kaiser a place that actually preserves a lot of docs autonomy because they don't have to jump through a million hoops and approvals?

Obviously I'm not a fan of mid level encroachment any more than the next guy but I'm not sure if that's really what's happening here
 
Lecture is much better than group learning. I want to hear an expert, not a bunch of medical students. Physicians should be trained to be leaders, not a member of a team. Schools that say they focus on primary care are full of crap. They all trumpet their rad onc and derm matches like everyone else. That guy's quotes is full of nonsense buzzwords. That's a red flag in itself.
 
There's no point in fighting and being angry about trends that have been well on their way for many years.
 
With so many qualified pre-meds in CA, drop in the bucket. The 50 or so students who will go to the KP school will not end up going to, say, Wake, Rush, Loyola, Jefferson, SUNY, etc.



AlteredScale said:
Wonder how this new KP school of medicine will affect the north state med school down the road.
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I'm just worried that the MD world is seeing the $succe$$ of the DO world opening new schools every 6 months
 
bc65 said:
Absolutely false. Doctors order whatever they want. There are no quotas. Certainly people might get criticized for quality issues, if they do surgery that isn't indicated, or fail to do surgery that is indicated, but that's for quality and is all within the medical group.

I suppose people might sue if they want something they didn't get, but that would be because the doctor didn't want to order it, and not because the insurance wouldn't cover it.
Click to expand...

I mean if anything, much like any multispecialty physicians group, the biggest issue is that people are going to get on your ass for not pulling your own weight when it comes to revenue. Kaiser is no different in that regard.
 
Each department (primary, surgical, or specialty) in Kaiser set their own "strategic goal" for the year specific to that department in terms of clinical care goals, access, patient satisfaction. Each then becomes responsible for the outcome and monetary amounts in the pay are tied to meeting these goals. There is no cross "blaming". The clinical goals are set by the regional Chiefs of Service and approved by the regional leaders (physician partners elected to these roles)
 
gyngyn said:
It's legit, and it's been discussed for over a decade.
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Are you skeptical of the school's approach to learning as some of your colleagues are?
 
WingedOx said:
I mean if anything, much like any multispecialty physicians group, the biggest issue is that people are going to get on your ass for not pulling your own weight when it comes to revenue. Kaiser is no different in that regard.
Click to expand...

There's no revenue, per se, so no pressure to produce more income or to minimize expenses, at least not directly, but there is now new pressure to maximize efficiency, which I suppose is more or less the same thing.
 
The Knife & Gun Club said:
In this case it doesn't really seem like they're actually trying to usurp any physician power, more just adding a one liner to a PR speech for the common folk who like to hear that their doctor is not some bigwig a hole.

Given my limited understanding of being a practicing physician (since I'm not one), but isn't kaiser a place that actually preserves a lot of docs autonomy because they don't have to jump through a million hoops and approvals?

Obviously I'm not a fan of mid level encroachment any more than the next guy but I'm not sure if that's really what's happening here
Click to expand...

I've been a Kaiser patient for a while, my husband was a Kaiser patient for many years (and received a great deal of very specialized care at Kaiser), and both the docs I shadowed work at Kaiser. I am confident in the quality of care my family and I have been provided, and the doctors I shadowed enjoy working for Kaiser -- I don't think either one sits and stresses about midlevel encroachment one bit (they are in FP and EM). When I have asked to see a doctor I have never been nudged towards an NP instead. I'm with you on what they are saying--they just want to sound accessible and friendly.
 
Kaiser primary care physicians are ridiculously overworked but are paid excellently with good benefits. However, they routinely underpay their specialists and surgeons.
I hope that Kaiser purchases the HUGE scientology center across the street on their Sunset Boulevard campus in Hollywood and turns the building into their med school campus. Kaiser already owns a big part of the land on Sunset for their medical offices. It would be a perfect location. It's next to a subway line that connects all of Los Angeles.
Kaiser now actually accepts medicare geriatric patients. Their goal is to have 25% of Angelinos on their health system by 2020.

But this notion of Kaiser championing "preventative medicine" is not entirely true or realistic. I have been a Kaiser patient my entire life along with my family. A visit to your PCP lasts about 15 minutes and God help you if you call 911 and are directed to an "out-of-network" hospital. You will be billed the entirety of the charges. When one of my parents had a stroke, he was taken to a local stroke center ED for immediate treatment. Kaiser refused to cover anything and we were told, verbatim, that "A family member should have notified the paramedics that he is a Kaiser patient so they could take him to a Kaiser facility." Nice joke. Have you not heard of Los Angeles traffic?
Another interesting tidbit is that Kaiser surgeons actually have restrictions on the type of procedures they are allowed to do. For example, you will not find a single vascular surgeon in the entire Kaiser network that does carotid angioplasty because the big docs in Oakland have decided that it's too "risky" and don't want to deal with the malpractice suits. Want to see a Kaiser Orthopedist for shoulder pain? Unless you've tried cortisone injections in the past 3 months you won't get a referral. Patients have very little control over their health and the physicians they can see. Everything is micromanaged.
I won't even go into what their Hollywood medical center has done to the homeless patients that are rolled into their ED. You can look it up on Google if you have the stomach for it.

BUT, it's ridiculously cheap. Even with the rise in premiums with other insurers as a result of the Affordable Care Act, Kaiser has kept premiums about the same.

Sorry for the long rant. I've been with the system long enough to see the good and the bad.
 
Henry101 said:
A visit to your PCP lasts about 15 minutes and God help you if you call 911 and are directed to an "out-of-network" hospital. You will be billed the entirety of the charges. When one of my parents had a stroke, he was taken to a local stroke center ED for immediate treatment. Kaiser refused to cover anything and we were told, verbatim, that "A family member should have notified the paramedics that he is a Kaiser patient so they could take him to a Kaiser facility." Nice joke. Have you not heard of Los Angeles traffic?
Click to expand...

I am sorry that that happened to your family. But do you think that might be a function of the plan you have, or even of Kaiser policies in California as opposed to in other regions? Not that long ago I had to take my husband, a Kaiser patient, to the ED. The closest Kaiser ED is still quite far from our home. We set off but he couldn't bear the situation and I felt I had no choice but to go to the nearest ED, not a Kaiser facility. He was seen there and later transferred by ambulance to the Kaiser facility, where he was admitted. I was terrified that we were going to face a giant bill for the whole episode but it was nothing other than the usual ED visit copay.
 
bumblebee611 said:
I am sorry that that happened to your family. But do you think that might be a function of the plan you have, or even of Kaiser policies in California as opposed to in other regions? Not that long ago I had to take my husband, a Kaiser patient, to the ED. The closest Kaiser ED is still quite far from our home. We set off but he couldn't bear the situation and I felt I had no choice but to go to the nearest ED, not a Kaiser facility. He was seen there and later transferred by ambulance to the Kaiser facility, where he was admitted. I was terrified that we were going to face a giant bill for the whole episode but it was nothing other than the usual ED visit copay.
Click to expand...
hmmm, I'm not sure. Kaiser did, eventually, cover a small part of the "out-of-network" bill after an appeal that took about 10 months to resolve. I'm not sure about their policy in other regions. I know Kaiser has facilities in Colorado, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and Georgia. I know Los Angeles and Oakland have the largest Kaiser populations though and this might affect the way they manage out-of-network costs.


Pagan FutureDoc said:
More new med schools and no increase in residency slots...it's not a good mix.
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I just saw this^^ and just want to point out that it's untrue. Kaiser runs many residency programs across the state and many of them are very competitive to get into.
 
i wonder what the lecture format is going to be like
 
GuyWhoDoesStuff said:
"Kaiser officials said the new school would include hands-on experience for students in clinics and hospitals, with a focus on primary care, the use of new technologies, and physicians’ role as part of a caregiving team. Kaiser executives said they haven’t yet settled on a site for the school’s campus. “The physician will not be sitting in a lecture hall like I did,” said Ed Ellison, executive medical director of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group. “It’s taking a different approach, turning the model almost upside-down.”

The fact that a bunch of premedical students view this as a positive step in the right direction worries me.

Physicians' roles in healthcare continue to be systematically dismantled, and we are apparently more than happy to allow it. The future of physician training is trending towards "teaching young physicians early that they are no more important in medical decision making than the janitor, and that they belong at the bottom of the totem pole like everyone else."

This is like Marlboro selling kiddie toys. Get them hooked at an early age when they're naive and have no clue what's going on.

By the way, the ridiculous "turn the classroom upside down" fad that has been permeating medical schools the past few years is absurd. A bunch of administrative educators float out some theories and then push them through to get some touchy feely journal articles published out of it.
Click to expand...
this is exactly why I don't like working at hospitals. This is usually how they make you feel. You are thought as arrogant to be thought as starting from the bottom but how bottom? that's the question.
 
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