In the meantime, paperwork snafus meant that hundreds of patients' transfers were not processed. Some lost their place in line for months or were rendered "inactive" -- effectively ineligible for a kidney.
The patients, however, were never told of the problems.
Kaiser officials declined to comment Friday on specific patient cases but said they have begun an internal inquiry and plan to contact the more than 2,000 patients now on Kaiser's waiting list to invite their questions and concerns. They are also considering whether to allow the patients to go back to non-Kaiser transplant programs for their care, the officials said.
"We're taking this all very seriously," said Mary Ann Thode, president of the Northern California region of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals. "We absolutely want to have the best-quality program that we can possibly have."
Outside regulators have begun inquiries into Kaiser's conduct as well.
The United Network for Organ Sharing, the federally funded contractor that oversees the transplant system nationwide, started looking into the Kaiser program this week after The Times' articles ran, executive director Walter Graham said.
Separately, the state Department of Managed Health Care is investigating the reported problems at Kaiser's Northern California health plan. Spokeswoman Lynne Randolph said the agency is willing to intervene on behalf of individual Kaiser members. (Southern California Kaiser patients are not affected by the Bay Area program.)
Most patients in the Kaiser program were in line for cadaver kidneys from strangers -- a wait that typically takes up to six years. But some of the angriest patients today are those fortunate enough to have offers of live donations from relatives. If the organ is well-matched to the recipient, those patients usually get their transplants right away.
It hasn't worked that way for Jason Mitchell.
Mitchell, 32, had begun a promising career in politics. After going into renal failure in early 2004, he was forced to leave his job as a legislative director in the California Assembly and later begin thrice-weekly rounds of dialysis.
In November of that year, he said, he notified Kaiser that his father, Evert, was willing to donate a kidney. Blood tests showed that the organ was a match.
But where Mitchell saw a way back to his old life, Kaiser saw only problems, he said. First, doctors told his father he had to lose weight. Then they said his blood pressure needed to be lower.
