Mental health therapists rejected Kaiser Permanente’s latest contract offer by a vote of 1,349 to 222, opting for stay on strike instead of accepting what they described as incremental changes that will not remedy patients’ long waits for treatment.
The rejection means the strike will enter its seventh week as the union and Kaiser remain at loggerheads over staffing and workload issues.
“We presented Kaiser officials with detailed proposals to increase staffing and improve access to care at the first negotiating session 14 months ago, and we will not agree to a contract that ignores those issues,” said Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a therapist of Kaiser in Oakland and a member of his union’s bargaining team. “At this point, Kaiser executives can’t have any misconceptions about what it will take to secure a contract. We are ready to negotiate 24 hours a day so that an agreement is signed as quickly as possible. It’s time for Kaiser to come back to the bargaining table and end this strike.”
The therapists, represented by the National Union of Health Care Workers, said Kaiser members often wait months to see their clients in Sacramento and elsewhere in Northern California after an initial intake session to assess their needs.
Kaiser members have also reached out to The Sacramento Bee to share how long waits for treatment affected them or their family members, saying they felt trapped in a “circle of horror” because the company left them to find a therapist with the proper credentials who was accepting new patients.
Kaiser Permanente released a statement, noting that 60% of therapists had returned to see their patients as the strike continues.
“It is unfortunate that union leaders pressured members to vote against it, confident that they would get more from continued contract negotiations,” Kaiser leaders said. “The ‘more’ that union leaders have identified will reduce access to mental health care for our members, and we have made it clear that we are not willing to do that.”
The company and the union have disagreed over how much time therapists should have to attend to patients’ needs outside of therapy sessions. Mental health providers have said that in addition to putting their notes into the Kaiser system, they often must connect patients with other resources and use the tools of their profession to assess a patient’s condition.
Currently, Kaiser allows therapists to spend 15% of their workday performing such tasks. While the company has referred to this as administrative work, therapists have said that it relates directly to patient care.
Mental health doctors said the company is experiencing high turnover among professionals in the behavioral health unit because they don’t have enough time to do this work, and that high turnover means they can’t get enough critical mass to ensure that members have timely access to care. .
Kaiser officials say turnover among the company’s mental health providers is no higher than that of workers in the health care industry in general.
the company is being investigated by the Department of Managed Health Care amid a surge in member complaints that it’s not providing timely access to behavioral health care.
NUHW represents more than 2,000 mental health physicians at Kaiser. Union leaders say Kaiser is blatantly violate a state law that requires health plans to ensure patients get follow-up appointments within 10 business days of their previous appointment if recommended by a therapist.
This story was originally published September 26, 2022 1:24 p.m.
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