Kaiser Permanente has agreed to a first-of-its-kind settlement aimed at ending patient dumping that requires the HMO to establish new discharge rules, provide more training for employees and allow a well-known former U.S. attorney to monitor its progress, officials announced Tuesday.
The agreement by the nation's largest HMO could resolve criminal charges and civil lawsuits filed against it last year by the Los Angeles city attorney's office, alleging that it dumped on skid row a homeless woman who had been a patient.
Prosecutors, who are investigating more than 50 cases of dumping in downtown L.A. over the last two years, urged other hospitals to adopt the same rules that Kaiser has accepted for its 11 hospitals in the region.
"Kaiser's adoption of these protocols proves there is no reason those practices should continue," said City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo.
Dr. Benjamin Chu, president of Kaiser Permanente's Southern California region, apologized Tuesday for dumping the woman and said Kaiser is committed to changing.
"This can point the way for how we all treat our homeless patients," he said.
As part of the settlement, Kaiser agreed to a series of requirements aimed at preventing future patient dumping and allowed Lourdes Baird, a former U.S. attorney for Los Angeles and retired U.S. District Court judge, to oversee how the hospital chain complies with the rules. She will report progress to a Superior Court judge in L.A. who has yet to be assigned to the case.
"I hope that today's announcement ... sends a strong message to other hospitals that continue to engage in this inhumane practice," Delgadillo said.
Jim Lott, executive vice president of the Hospital Assn. of Southern California, which represents more than 170 hospitals, 95% of those in the region, said that the settlement was "unique to Kaiser at this point in time" but that his organization is proposing similar protocols for patient release and employee training for its member hospitals.
"We are looking at what Kaiser produced, and we are thinking we don't need to reinvent the wheel for other hospitals," Lott said. "That's not final, but it's what's being considered."
The Kaiser case involved a 63-year-old patient who was discharged from Kaiser's Bellflower hospital last March. A video at a downtown mission shows the woman, Carol Ann Reyes, apparently being dropped off by a taxi and then wandering aimlessly along San Pedro Street, clothed in only a hospital gown and slippers. After several minutes, officials from the Union Rescue Mission escorted her into a nearby building.
