Kaiser strike

Healthcare jobs with pay you can see.
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
A

anbuitachi

Full Member
Verified Member
Physician
15+ Year Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
7,495
Reaction score
4,183
www.marylandmatters.org

Health care workers in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. authorize strike against Kaiser Permanente, joining thousands across the nation - Maryland Matters

One of the main concerns from the union is persistent staffing shortages, which impacts the ability to take care of patients and contributes to longer wait-times.
www.marylandmatters.org www.marylandmatters.org

Anyone know whats the deal with doctors? they are not included in their union??
Members don't see this ad.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
anbuitachi said:
www.marylandmatters.org

Health care workers in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. authorize strike against Kaiser Permanente, joining thousands across the nation - Maryland Matters

One of the main concerns from the union is persistent staffing shortages, which impacts the ability to take care of patients and contributes to longer wait-times.
www.marylandmatters.org www.marylandmatters.org

Anyone know whats the deal with doctors? they are not included in their union??
Click to expand...

the doctors there suffer because kaiser bows down to these unions at their expense. highest paid nurses and surgical techs in the state of california
 
Anesthesia_Guy said:
Doctors can't unionize.
Click to expand...
Why physicians think this is true is completely beyond me. Employed physicians can (and do) unionize. Unfortunately, it's at a low rate because of uneducated physicians like you.

Please stop propagating this utter nonsense. It's damaging to our profession.
 
kidthor said:
Employed doctors can unionize, and can strike. Kaiser partners probably can’t unionize because they’re considered owners/managers. But the underlings can have at it….
Click to expand...
There are probably people who can speak more eloquently on this, but since Kaiser physicians are not employed by Kaiser hospitals, per se, but rather are shareholders in a physician-owned medical practice, unionizing doesn't really work. I suppose they could just refuse to show up to work, but then be in breach of contract with the hospital.
 
cchoukal said:
There are probably people who can speak more eloquently on this, but since Kaiser physicians are not employed by Kaiser hospitals, per se, but rather are shareholders in a physician-owned medical practice, unionizing doesn't really work. I suppose they could just refuse to show up to work, but then be in breach of contract with the hospital.
Click to expand...
Kaiser does not employ or pay physicians. That is a separate but very connected entity known as the Permanente medical group.

The problem is that the Permanente medical group is controlled by Kaiser and the influence they have over its leader ship makes it weak
 
Maz777 said:
Why physicians think this is true is completely beyond me. Employed physicians can (and do) unionize. Unfortunately, it's at a low rate because of uneducated physicians like you.

Please stop propagating this utter nonsense. It's damaging to our profession.
Click to expand...
Thank you for enlightening me. I'm sure that based solely on this post, doctors will now band together and unionize. Thank you! Get back to the circus clown.
 
cchoukal said:
There are probably people who can speak more eloquently on this, but since Kaiser physicians are not employed by Kaiser hospitals, per se, but rather are shareholders in a physician-owned medical practice, unionizing doesn't really work. I suppose they could just refuse to show up to work, but then be in breach of contract with the hospital.
Click to expand...
The partners are shareholders but the associates are employed workers. The associates certainly can unionize.
 
From everything I’ve ever been able to figure out about Kaiser… Kaiser is employed position where you are gaslit that somehow you’re an owner. So in that sense I guess legally/practically Kaiser docs can’t join the union.

Kaiser seems like the worst of all worlds, the headaches of being an “owner” in private practice mixed with the pay of being an employee doc and even bonus points the golden handcuffs of a pension like working at the VA
 
Members don't see this ad :)
HemeOncHopeful19 said:
From everything I’ve ever been able to figure out about Kaiser… Kaiser is employed position where you are gaslit that somehow you’re an owner. So in that sense I guess legally/practically Kaiser docs can’t join the union.

Kaiser seems like the worst of all worlds, the headaches of being an “owner” in private practice mixed with the pay of being an employee doc and even bonus points the golden handcuffs of a pension like working at the VA
Click to expand...

balanced out by having set schedule, easy workload, VA level of OR effeciency so less work to be done, no billing, no pager calls, etc
 
Check your contract. Physicians may not be able to unionize and strike. Many employers put a clause in a physician contract that states the physician is an executive/manager/supervisor. If that is the case, you are likely not allowed to strike. Managers and supervisors are not protected by the NLRA.
 
GravelRider said:
Check your contract. Physicians may not be able to unionize and strike. Many employers put a clause in a physician contract that states the physician is an executive/manager/supervisor. If that is the case, you are likely not allowed to strike. Managers and supervisors are not protected by the NLRA.
Click to expand...
i thought its just those with hiring/firing powers? not all supervisor/managers have hiring abilities
 
GaseousClay said:
balanced out by having set schedule, easy workload, VA level of OR effeciency so less work to be done, no billing, no pager calls, etc
Click to expand...
That’s fair to be honest I forgot what forum I’m in, I don’t typically see/hear as much about the Anesthesia details.
 
www.cirseiu.org

Who We Are - Committee of Interns and Residents

The national voice of residents with over 16,000 members nationwide. We empower our nation’s residents and fellows to fight for excellence for our patients.
www.cirseiu.org www.cirseiu.org


forums.studentdoctor.net

Physicians strike

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hr/california-physicians-set-strike-dates.html?origin=BHRE&utm_source=BHRE&utm_medium=email&utm_content=newsletter&oly_enc_id=9452C1901623I0T Physician union? Is this a thing? Apparently so. Will this be a trend?
forums.studentdoctor.net forums.studentdoctor.net
 
Anesthesia_Guy said:
Thank you for enlightening me. I'm sure that based solely on this post, doctors will now band together and unionize. Thank you! Get back to the circus clown.
Click to expand...
Glad you are enlightened. When you say something that is patently false, expect to be corrected. Many of us have been part of unions. Feeble unions, but unions nonetheless. Eventually, employed physicians will be unionized in a powerful way. That's the natural history of downtrodden employees. Just waiting for CMS and insurance companies to continue to destroy medicine to the point where there is no other option. It just doesn't help when jackals propagate this false notion repeatedly.
 
Last edited:
i do hope more doctors strike. it helps our profession. with better working conditions doctors are less burnt out, patients are better cared for.
we have doctors from other developed countries here who are shocked at how bad the system is here. doctors are super overworked with little protection, and we all treat it like its normal. when i get to work at 630, most of the professional world are still in bed. when i tell non doc friends i work 24 hrs, they ask how is that legal. i do think in the next couple decades, there'll be a lot more doctor union participation
 
anbuitachi said:
i do hope more doctors strike. it helps our profession. with better working conditions doctors are less burnt out, patients are better cared for.
we have doctors from other developed countries here who are shocked at how bad the system is here. doctors are super overworked with little protection, and we all treat it like its normal. when i get to work at 630, most of the professional world are still in bed. when i tell non doc friends i work 24 hrs, they ask how is that legal. i do think in the next couple decades, there'll be a lot more doctor union participation
Click to expand...
This is getting ridiculous already. PLENTY of professions work weird hours. Think police, fire EMT, pilots, road construction, hospitality. The list goes on. In this market nobody is forced to work hours they don’t want. There are a TON of daytime and set your own hours locums positions. I’m as pro doc as anyone but I see a lot of folks signing on for full time call taking jobs, knowing full well what that entails, then complaining about the work they willingly signed up for.
 
dannyboy1 said:
This is getting ridiculous already. PLENTY of professions work weird hours. Think police, fire EMT, pilots, road construction, hospitality. The list goes on. In this market nobody is forced to work hours they don’t want. There are a TON of daytime and set your own hours locums positions. I’m as pro doc as anyone but I see a lot of folks signing on for full time call taking jobs, knowing full well what that entails, then complaining about the work they willingly signed up for.
Click to expand...


Since you brought up pilots. They have a powerful union.

Federal Register :: Request Access

www.ecfr.gov www.ecfr.gov

IMG_9950.jpeg
 
Last edited:
anbuitachi said:
i do hope more doctors strike. it helps our profession. with better working conditions doctors are less burnt out, patients are better cared for.
we have doctors from other developed countries here who are shocked at how bad the system is here. doctors are super overworked with little protection, and we all treat it like its normal. when i get to work at 630, most of the professional world are still in bed. when i tell non doc friends i work 24 hrs, they ask how is that legal. i do think in the next couple decades, there'll be a lot more doctor union participation
Click to expand...
Unionization has historically been a line in the sand for political parties.
 
abolt18 said:
Dang. My contract requires a minimum of 550hrs/quarter and they're not allowed to work past 500 haha. Unreal.
Click to expand...
I think their restrictions are reasonable too. It’s just not safe to have people working 24hrs a day. I don’t want my pilot or my doctor to be working on their 23rd hour with barely any time between shifts.
 
To be clear, federal aviation regulations set strict limits on how many hours commercial pilots can fly as well as how long their rest breaks must be between trips. Airlines will schedule pilots for less than federal limits to avoid breaking these rules. Have you ever had a flight cancel because the crew timed out? I sure have.

There’s been enough research into human factors to know that fatigue leads to critical errors, and the aviation industry has done a great job (so far) putting the flying public’s safety first.

No doubt fatigued health care workers put patients at risk but there are no federal limits on our hours worked. Why? Probably because wait times for health care would dramatically increase as physician productivity decreased and this is deemed unacceptable by society.

Other safety objectives in aviation that are too often glossed over in medicine are reducing task saturation, eliminating machoism, creating redundancies. It’s hard to fix these things without increasing health care costs. A reasonable person may assume aviation and medicine are similar but if you look closely it’s apparent how different they are.
 
IIMC said:
To be clear, federal aviation regulations set strict limits on how many hours commercial pilots can fly as well as how long their rest breaks must be between trips. Airlines will schedule pilots for less than federal limits to avoid breaking these rules. Have you ever had a flight cancel because the crew timed out? I sure have.

There’s been enough research into human factors to know that fatigue leads to critical errors, and the aviation industry has done a great job (so far) putting the flying public’s safety first.

No doubt fatigued health care workers put patients at risk but there are no federal limits on our hours worked. Why? Probably because wait times for health care would dramatically increase as physician productivity decreased and this is deemed unacceptable by society.

Other safety objectives in aviation that are too often glossed over in medicine are reducing task saturation, eliminating machoism, creating redundancies. It’s hard to fix these things without increasing health care costs. A reasonable person may assume aviation and medicine are similar but if you look closely it’s apparent how different they are.
Click to expand...


Even the flight attendants have mandatory rest periods and flight time restrictions. If it looks like they will exceed their limits, they will deadhead home as a passenger.
 
nimbus said:
Even the flight attendants have mandatory rest periods and flight time restrictions. If it looks like they will exceed their limits, they will deadhead home as a passenger.
Click to expand...
Tell me more about this “deadhead” flight attendants are giving…I’m kidding 😂
 
Last edited:
IIMC said:
No doubt fatigued health care workers put patients at risk but there are no federal limits on our hours worked. Why? Probably because wait times for health care would dramatically increase as physician productivity decreased and this is deemed unacceptable by society.
Click to expand...
That and I think a plane crash is dramatic and optically horrible, whereas tons of individual patient deaths are constructively hidden from view.
 
HemeOncHopeful19 said:
From everything I’ve ever been able to figure out about Kaiser… Kaiser is employed position where you are gaslit that somehow you’re an owner. So in that sense I guess legally/practically Kaiser docs can’t join the union.

Kaiser seems like the worst of all worlds, the headaches of being an “owner” in private practice mixed with the pay of being an employee doc and even bonus points the golden handcuffs of a pension like working at the VA
Click to expand...
There are pros and cons to the foundation model. I'm not at Kaiser but am a "shareholder" in a medical group that contracts with Sutter, similar to TPMG and Kaiser.

In theory the TPMG leadership should be independent of Kaiser, and annually negotiating a physician services agreement (collectively bargaining for all TPMG docs) to maximize revenue for TPMG.). In practice I've heard complaints that TPMG leadership seems too cozy with Kaiser. I can't speak to TPMGs corporate structure, but at my shop leadership is accountable. We elect board members for 4 year terms. Board members hire and fire the CEO and other leadership. Based on culture/precedent, we usually have a CEO who is a former shareholder in the group. I would expect TPMG has a similar structure.
 
Kaiser can not make their physicians work more than they should. People say scpmg will eventually fail because all physicians there and other staff go out of their way to do less work. the surgeons rarely do more than 3 joints per day even though the back log is in the thousands. they can extend their operating times to avoid clinic work, cancel cases for essentially nothing etc etc
 
GaseousClay said:
Kaiser can not make their physicians work more than they should. People say scpmg will eventually fail because all physicians there and other staff go out of their way to do less work. the surgeons rarely do more than 3 joints per day even though the back log is in the thousands. they can extend their operating times to avoid clinic work, cancel cases for essentially nothing etc etc
Click to expand...

This is why any straight salary system is eventually going to break or be horribly inefficient.

Pure fee-for-service / production has its own problems — but no system should be less than 50% based on some sort of production pay.
 
GaseousClay said:
Kaiser can not make their physicians work more than they should. People say scpmg will eventually fail because all physicians there and other staff go out of their way to do less work. the surgeons rarely do more than 3 joints per day even though the back log is in the thousands. they can extend their operating times to avoid clinic work, cancel cases for essentially nothing etc etc
Click to expand...

Why would Kaiser make its doctors to work more? The $$$ has been collected. The less they do, the less the expenses, the more the profit.
 
narcotics999 said:
Why would Kaiser make its doctors to work more? The $$$ has been collected. The less they do, the less the expenses, the more the profit.
Click to expand...

Not quite that simple. If patients don’t get at least “enough” access to XYZ doctors that does eventually lead to feedback/complaints and then loss of employer contracts and thus premiums.

But it is an inefficient system, as it attracts those that often do the minimum and take the most benefits (sick leave etc).
 
narcotics999 said:
Why would Kaiser make its doctors to work more? The $$$ has been collected. The less they do, the less the expenses, the more the profit.
Click to expand...


The best possible outcome for any insurance company is to enroll as many healthy patients as possible, have them all hit by a bus and die at the scene before ever seeing the inside of a hospital.
 
narcotics999 said:
Why would Kaiser make its doctors to work more? The $$$ has been collected. The less they do, the less the expenses, the more the profit.
Click to expand...
That’s why hospital and insurance ownership should be separated by law. If only the government was actually off and for the people.
 
nimbus said:
The best possible outcome for any insurance company is to enroll as many healthy patients as possible, have them all hit by a bus and die at the scene before ever seeing the inside of a hospital.
Click to expand...

Every time this happens the executives at United Health get a fat bonus.
 
Strike will be over at 6am tomorrow. Did it accomplish anything besides drawing media attention? Was that the goal of the 3 day strike?
 
repititionition said:
to give KP a taste of how bad a prolonged strike could hurt, while not torpedoing patient care and incurring poor public perception
Click to expand...
Wouldn’t a prolonged strike reduce healthcare utilization and thus be a good thing for Kaiser as long as it doesn’t lead to too many people leaving their HMO plan?
 
of course, but the latter half of your statement is the key.

also, consumer complaints to the board of insurance tend to make life hard for insurers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

nimbus
Buffalo resident’s strike
Replies
35
Views
4K
pgg
pgg
A
Physicians strike
2 3
Replies
106
Views
5K
kidthor
kidthor
G
7,000 nurses on strike- Mount Sinai, NY
2
Replies
98
Views
7K
anbuitachi
A
2
Striking NJ nurses
Replies
31
Views
3K
Status Sciaticus
Status Sciaticus
P
  • Poll Poll
Updated Kaiser Southern California (2022) thread
2 3
Replies
138
Views
24K
NitroS
N
Top