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Kaiser facing accusations that patients are losing mental healthcare

Published

4 weeks ago

April 9, 2024

Months after Kaiser Permanente reached a sweeping agreement with state regulators to improve its mental health services, the healthcare giant is facing allegations that patients could be improperly losing such care.

The National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents thousands of Kaiser mental health professionals, complained earlier this year to state regulators that Kaiser appeared to be inappropriately handing off decisions about whether therapy is still medically necessary.

The union alleged that Rula Health, a contracted network of therapists that Kaiser uses to provide virtual care to its members, had been directed by Kaiser to use “illegal criteria” to make those decisions during regular reviews.

California requires such decisions about mental health care to be based on criteria developed by professional groups, but the union said there was no evidence that was happening. Instead, the union complained that documents indicated Rula was relying on questions answered by Kaiser patients about their own symptoms.

The risk is that patients “have a psychological disorder that requires additional treatment and Kaiser is unfairly and improperly terminating their access to care,” said Fred Seavey, a researcher for the union.

The union also alleged that regularly requiring such “clinical care reviews” violated laws barring insurers from putting up barriers to mental healthcare that don’t exist for other health conditions. Kaiser does not subject other outpatient care to such reviews, “let alone at such frequencies,” the union said in its complaint.

The union called on the California Department of Managed Health Care to order Kaiser to immediately halt that review process and notify any Kaiser patients whose treatment was “illegally terminated” by Rula.

Kaiser said in a statement that it does not set limits on the number of therapy sessions, and that “the level of therapy needed and the frequency and number of sessions for any patient is a decision made by our mental health care providers in consultation with patients and as appropriate based on the patient’s clinical needs.”

It added that “the self-assessment tools do not determine whether treatment remains medically necessary. … Patient self-assessment tools may be used as one aspect of gathering information from the patient but are never the only factor.”

A Department of Managed Health Care spokesperson said its enforcement office was looking into the issues raised by the union under its recent settlement with Kaiser. That agreement, reached last fall, required Kaiser to pay a $50-million penalty and invest $150 million over five years into improving its mental healthcare.

The state agency said it had found shortcomings at Kaiser related to failures to provide timely appointments, insufficient oversight of medical groups in determining “appropriate care,” and inadequate handling of patient grievances, among other issues.

Among the problems that DMHC noted: Medical records for patients did not show the use of legally required guidelines for making decisions about mental health treatment. Patient records instead showed “self-assessment scores” from questionnaires, according to the settlement agrement.

Kaiser Permanente chief executive Greg A. Adams said last year that the organization had seen demand for mental healthcare surge amid the pandemic, which collided with an “ongoing shortage of qualified mental health professionals, clinician burnout and turnover,” as well as a 10-day strike by mental health clinicians.

In a recent statement, Kaiser said it was “in the process of implementing transformational changes contemplated by the settlement agreement,” including a “dramatic increase in the number of providers available to see our members — both newly-hired therapists and contracted therapists.”

A Rula spokesperson said in a statement that its therapists, “in collaboration with their patients, make all clinical decisions around the course of care.”

In Chino, Jaklynn Fuentes-Soto said she was told by her therapist earlier this year that her sessions with the Rula provider would soon stop, even though “my therapist thought that I should continue treatment.” The 25-year-old said that if she wanted to keep seeing the therapist, she would have to pay out of pocket.

As a student working part time, “I don’t think that financially I’m able to.”

Fuentes-Soto said she has been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and other mental health conditions. She said she had been regularly seeing her therapist after one episode led her mother to take her to the emergency room.

“If I’m not having the help that I need for my mental health,” she said, “it has me regress to a very dark place.”

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Gutfeld: Team Biden is lying to the American people to imprison its chief rival

Published

5 hours ago

May 9, 2024

Greg Gutfeld

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Trump notches a win as libs sit and spin. A federal judge has postponed Trump’s classified records trial indefinitely. It was supposed to start later this month, but like my vacation plans with Kristi Noem, that ain’t happening.

You remember that case: the sham trial stemming from the classified records investigation cooked up by Jack Smith. The trial should have started May 20, but due to the myriad and interconnected pretrial issues, Judge Aileen Cannon put the whole damn thing on hold. Translation: That case is imploding faster than when my butt implants went scuba diving.

And our instincts as to why are correct. The judge’s decision to postpone the trial comes just days after Jack Smith’s own prosecutors admitted that evidence was rearranged after the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago back in August 2022.

FEDERAL JUDGE POSTPONES TRUMP’S CLASSIFIED RECORDS TRIAL WITH NO NEW DATE

Said the feds: “There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans… The government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what government counsel previously understood and represented to the court.”

That’s a lot of words for saying, “We f***** up.” Even former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder admits the whole process has simply not been on the up-and-up. And that’s coming from a Democrat who looks like Howard Sprague.

And here’s a revelation: The infamous crime scene photo of the raid may be more doctored than Jill Biden’s education. Think about it. They admitted as much in a recent court filing.

This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Remember, it’s the picture the liberal media shoved down our throats. All the classified papers laid out neatly on the beautiful, expensive Trump carpeting. Documents labeled “Top Secret” with distinct classification levels showing just how evil and conniving the big orange Godzilla really was to hoard such top secret materials.

The only thing is those papers labeled top secret were cover sheets they simply slapped on there for the photo op. Yeah, top secret cover sheets. What is this, “Get Smart”? Hey, guys, we don’t want people to read this, better put “top secret” on it. Yeah, while we’re at it, be sure to put, “Don’t peek, awesome toy inside” on your kids’ Christmas gifts.

JUDGE UNSEALS FBI FILES IN TRUMP CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE, INCLUDING DETAILED TIMELINE OF MAR-A-LAGO RAID

As Julie Kelly with Declassified was first to report, the court filings “conclusively demonstrate that the government used the cover sheets to deceive the public as well as the court. The photo was a stunt, and one that adds more fuel to this dumpster-fire case.” True, it was more staged than a Kilmeade book signing.

So once again, it’s Team Biden lying to the American people to imprison his chief rival, because if you can’t beat him, put him behind bars. But of course, there’s no fooling the New York Times, they published this piece just days after the raid, “How the Picture of Top Secret Folders at Mar-a-Lago Came About.”

Yeah, it was just one of the dozens of left-wing headlines touting the authenticity of a photo that was about as legitimate as those pills I ordered from Canada. I actually got shorter.

Now, I didn’t go to law school, but I know evidence tampering when I see it — it’s how I framed OJ. Of course, as predicted, the Trump-dependent media is melting down over the trial’s indefinite delay.

Donald Trump and Jack Smith (Getty Images/File) (Getty Images)

JUSTICE THOMAS RAISED CRUCIAL QUESTION ABOUT LEGITIMACY OF SPECIAL COUNSEL’S PROSECUTION OF TRUMP

MSNBC’S JOE SCARBOROUGH: It’s crazy. It’s crazy. A 12-year-old that went with her mother to “Take a Kid to Court Day,” like as a lawyer, or something, would have come up with a better ruling than she’s come up with. It’s bizarre… I guess she’s either ill-equipped — extraordinarily ill-equipped — or she just doesn’t care what the world thinks of her. She’s right now looking like, everything she’s doing, she’s doing to help Donald Trump.

No, God forbid there’s some honesty right there at the end. He’s not mad over the alleged tampering. He’s mad that the defendant may be helped by the ruling.

Now, a normal person would be outraged that the government may be framing an American citizen, but in Joe’s mind, the outrage is that this citizen might get justice.

Piece of advice, Joe: When you start rooting for the law to get away with bad things, you might be the bad guy. “Morning Joe” has now become the “Bonnie and Clyde” of insufferable dip*****.

So, while that Florida trial is put on ice, the hush money trial in New York took its scheduled weekly break today, so what are all the players up to? Well, Stormy Daniels took the day off to hit the beach.

A court sketch depicts former President Donald Trump appearance in federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida on Thursday, March 14, 2024. Trump’s lawyers are asking Judge Aileen Cannon to dismiss special counsel Jack Smith’s charges pertaining to Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. (Lothar Speer)

…

HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE INVESTIGATES ‘MANIPULATED’ EVIDENCE SEIZED BY FBI IN TRUMP CLASSIFIED RECORDS PROBE

See, it seems nothing can get orange Godzilla down. Every cockamamie crime, every faux felony, every trumped-up charge. Meanwhile, Biden’s being hidden in a crate by the Ark of the Covenant, but it’s all starting to unravel, just like the plot of a Stormy Daniels movie.

Why would there be four pizza delivery guys?

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So you notice a trend here?

They told us the laptop was fake, but this photo was real. They told us spying on the Trumps was fake, but Russian collusion was real. They told us inflation was fake, but those job numbers were real.

How come the lies only go one way to help one guy and hurt the other? And we’re supposed to be too dumb to notice? Well, maybe if you’re “Morning Joe.”

Greg Gutfeld currently serves as host of Gutfeld! (weeknights, 11PM-12AM/ET) and co-host of cable news’ highest-rated program The Five (weekdays, 5-6PM/ET).

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Biden Says the U.S. Will Not Supply Israel With Weapons to Attack Rafah

Published

7 hours ago

May 9, 2024

Erica L. Green

President Biden acknowledged on Wednesday that American bombs have been used to kill Palestinian civilians as he warned that the United States would withhold certain weapons if Israel launches a long-threatened assault in southern Gaza.

In some of his strongest language to date on the seven-month war, Mr. Biden said the United States would still ensure Israel’s security, including the Iron Dome missile defense system and Israel’s “ability to respond to attacks” like the one Iran launched in April.

But he said he would block the delivery of weapons that could be fired into densely populated areas of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering.

The president had already halted the shipment of 3,500 bombs last week out of concern that they might be used in a major assault on Rafah — the first time since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 that Mr. Biden has leveraged U.S. arms to try to influence how the war is waged.

On Wednesday, he said that he would also block the delivery of artillery shells.

“If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, that deal with that problem,” Mr. Biden said in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett.

He added: “But it’s just wrong. We’re not going to — we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used, that have been used.”

Asked whether 2,000-pound American bombs had been used to kill civilians in Gaza, Mr. Biden said: “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers.”

Mr. Biden’s remarks underscore the growing rift between the United States and its closest Middle East ally over the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 people and caused a humanitarian crisis. The United States is by far the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, and the Biden administration plans to deliver a report to Congress this week assessing whether it believes Israel’s assurances that it has used American weapons in accordance with U.S. and international law.

Mr. Biden had resisted earlier calls to condition aid to Israel Mr. Biden has remained unwavering in his support of Israel’s right to defend itself, even as he speaks out forcefully against the invasion of Rafah and grows frustrated with what he once described as Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing.”

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has rebuffed the U.S. warnings, saying that Israel would move forward with eradicating Hamas even if it has to do so alone.

This week, the Israeli war cabinet voted unanimously to move forward with a Rafah assault, and Israeli forces warned more than 100,000 civilians to evacuate as it started what it called “targeted strikes” against Hamas.

U.S. officials said this week that Israel had said its operation thus far in Rafah was “limited” and “designed to cut off Hamas’s ability to smuggle weapons into Gaza,” but continued to express their concern with an escalation.

Mr. Biden said he did not consider Israel’s operations in Rafah to date to qualify as a full-scale invasion because they have not struck “population centers.”

But he said he considered them to be “right on the border,” adding that they were causing problems with key allies such as Egypt, which has been integral to cease-fire negotiations and opening border crossings for humanitarian aid.

Mr. Biden said he had made it clear to Mr. Netanyahu and his war cabinet that they would not get support if they moved forward with an offensive in densely populated areas.

“We’re not walking away from Israel’s security,” he said, “we’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”

Mr. Biden was also asked about Gaza protests on college campuses — specifically chants calling him “Genocide Joe” — that have erupted in recent weeks.

Asked if he hears the message of those young Americans, Mr. Biden said:

“Absolutely, I hear the message.”

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