KPWA enacting drastic staffing changes

TL;DR: Kaiser Permanente Washington (KPWA) is cutting appointing call center staff (both number of positions and hours per week) for questionable reasons, which will ultimately lead to worse service, less access and fewer options, all for a much higher price. KPWA leadership is being very quiet about it because they don’t want to face the court of public opinion, especially with the recent news of a data breach that exposed the personal and protected health information of over 13 million of their patients.

Posting this from a throwaway account for obvious reasons.

Before I get into what’s going on, I want to give you some information on why you should care about any of this. If you live in Washington state and have Kaiser Permanente Washington (KPWA) insurance, you will soon experience longer wait times for calling in to make an appointment. There will be more errors being made by employees who are overworked and undertrained. There will be a very good possibility of talking to someone who is not local and doesn’t understand why you don’t want to travel from Puyallup to Capitol Hill on a Monday morning, or even how to pronounce Puyallup. You will experience a lower standard of care, have worse access to care and fewer options for care, all for a higher price.

If you don’t live in Washington state but still have KP insurance, these changes are coming for your region, too (or they already have). You’ll get worse service, less access and fewer options, but more money will come out of your pocket. If you don’t have KP insurance at all, then this still affects you because if KP can be successful with these actions and by following this model, then the other for-profit insurance companies can as well, and they’ll absolutely follow suit. Unions will become weaker, employers will feel empowered to abuse their employees further, and everyone will suffer for it except the ultra-rich. The powerful expect others to stay silent about abuse like this.

Now, onto the details. My spouse currently works for KPWA in the appointing call center. Kaiser Permanente Washington regional leadership held a town hall meeting on January 3, 2024 to announce that the region had experienced a reduction in membership (which is the word they use for their customers who have Kaiser Permanente health insurance) that led to a loss in revenue. They also announced that this could possibly lead to a reduction in positions in several work units but were not specific on what those cuts would be or in what departments. In early February of 2024, the KPWA appointing call center leadership announced (without discussing their plans with the union, as the call center employees are represented with local OPEIU 8) that they were going to be cutting staff across the call center and that the changes would take effect in March of 2024. The local union representatives from OPEIU 8 then engaged with KPWA leadership in the hopes of bargaining the decision and were able to bring KPWA to the table. After several negotiating sessions, the union and KPWA were able to come to an agreement that this change in staffing would require a shift rebid (meaning all represented employees would have to choose from the available shifts/positions in seniority order) to be held after a training and Q&A session with all affected employees. As of now, KPWA leadership is still in the process of holding the training and Q&A sessions with affected employees and will be until Friday, April 26, 2024. Starting on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, call center employees will begin bidding for the future state shifts and available positions, in seniority order. Any changes will then take effect on June 3, 2024.

There are currently 326 call center employees affected by this decision. There are only 306 future state shifts available to bid into, meaning at least 20 employees will be left without a position. The local OPEIU 8 union was able to get concessions from KPWA leadership that would allow for employees to opt into take early retirement (if an employee is 55 years or older), up to 12 weeks severance pay (based on length of service with the company, two weeks of pay for every year of service up to 6 years), layoff with placement on a “recall” list for up to 18 months (meaning, if the employee’s previous position becomes available during the 18 months following layoff, they would have priority to return to that position), or placement in a comparable position under the Employment and Income Security Agreement (EISA) section of the union contract. “Comparable position” in this case means the same number of hours, same pay, similar shift time/day, similar job duties and responsibilities, and same physical location as the employee’s current position.

Unfortunately, there are only 20 severance packages available, and when they’re gone (based on seniority), they’re gone. Also, KPWA leadership is attempting to limit options under the EISA by stating that if an employee has the option to bid into a shift on a different (e.g. different skills, meaning re-training would be required and the employee would have a different supervisor and coworkers) team and/or a difference in hours of up to +/-25% of their current shift (meaning if an employee currently works full time, 40 hours per week, and their only option is a part time, 30 hour per week shift, they must take it, as it meets the legal definition of a “comparable position), they must take that shift, even if they don’t want to or it would mean they would be unable to pay their bills. I would challenge anyone to claim that they would be willing to take a 25% pay cut and consider that comparable.
KPWA has the option to not cut staff at all. They didn’t lose money last year; in fact, their WPMG (Washington Permanente Medical Group) sector, which is the health care provider part of their business, broke even. Kaiser Permanente national made quite a bit of money in 2023, over $4 billion in net income. They had over $300 million in operating income that year, which is the difference between operating revenues and operating expenses, which does not include investment and other non-operating income. KPWA also has the option of allowing all their displaced staff to select a legitimately comparable position under their own EISA agreement, since they have a vested interest in the health and overall well-being of their employees. They have invested a significant amount of time and money in them, after all.

KPWA leadership and Kaiser Permanente national does not want this information to be shared. They are not a publicly traded company, so they have no shareholders to answer to. They do not have government oversight (outside of the usual regulatory agencies) preventing them from doing things like this, so they feel that they can cut staff and disrupt their employee’s lives with impunity. They have stated multiple times that all of the above information is “privileged and confidential" because they know the court of public opinion will not be on their side. They especially don’t want this news to come out now, since it was recently revealed that a data breach earlier this year exposed the personal and protected health information of over 13 million of their patients.

What’s more, is that KP has already made moves in an attempt to weaken their union agreements and shift away from their long-touted non-profit business model that, in their words, proves they care about the people and communities they serve. KPWA has already outsourced some union-represented jobs to India, and will continue to do so in order to supplement their workforce (they will most likely replace the call center staff they are cutting with overseas, non-union labor). KP national recently acquired Geisinger Health, a fully non-union health insurance company that has been rolled into a subsidiary of KP named Risant Health, with the goal of competing against for-profit health insurance companies like UnitedHealth, Amazon, and Aetna.

Earlier this year, KPWA reduced their Medicaid rolls by over 17,000 people, and are now not taking any new Medicaid members, with no plans to change that anytime soon. Shortly after, KPWA severely limited the number of non-KP insurances they accept. Previously, KPWA contracted with several other insurance companies to see their patients at KP facilities. Now, there are only two or three insurance companies (other than KP) that will be accepted at KP facilities and even then, there are very specific restrictions. It would not be all that surprising if KPWA eventually reduces their Medicaid rolls to 0, further limits all accepted insurance to nothing other than KP, and restricts all specialty department access to referral-only from primary care. All of these things would conform to the “for-profit” health insurance model that KP seems to be moving towards.

Please help us spread this far and wide: feel free to share any/all of this on social media, as the public needs to be made aware of what Kaiser Permanente Washington and by extension, KP National, is trying to do to their employees as it affects not only those employees but anyone who has Kaiser Permanente insurance, receives care from Kaiser Permanente facilities, or even those who have health insurance through competing companies. Thank you.

submitted by /u/Popular-Repeat1929
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