Kaiser mental health workers plan to strike this month at Northern California sites
More than 2,000 psychologists, therapists and other mental health practitioners served notice to Kaiser Permanente that they intend to strike starting Aug. 15 and do not plan to return to work until a new labor contract is negotiated.
Members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers have been working for nearly a year without an agreement, and they say their central concern is the length of time that patients must wait to get regular sessions.
“Patients are suffering. They’re not getting better; they’re getting worse,” said Sarah Soroken, a triage therapist who schedules Kaiser patients for appointments in the Napa and Solano areas. “Some are experiencing worsened prognoses or suicide attempts. Therapists are being forced to practice their trade in a way that violates their profession’s code of ethics and state and federal mental health parity laws.”
Deb Catsavas, senior vice president of human resources at Kaiser Permanente, said the two sides were close to an agreement before union leaders announced plans to strike.
“Together, we have made significant progress in bargaining,” Catsavas said. “In our last bargaining session, we were about 1% apart in our respective wage proposals, and we came to bargaining last Friday with hopes to bargain vigorously and bring negotiations to a conclusion. Unfortunately, union leadership delivered a fully new economic proposal from NUHW that avoids reaching agreement and pushes us further apart.”
Union leaders have also asked independent practitioners contracting with Kaiser to support them, Catsavas said, something she called “unconscionable.”
Despite the progress, Soroken said key sticking points remain, such as the union’s concerns about patient care access, workload, retention and recruitment. She and other Kaiser therapists remain deeply concerned, Soroken said, that after initial intake appointment, patients must wait weeks and sometimes months before they are assigned a provider.
A California law, which went into effect last month, mandates that health care plans provide patients with follow-up appointments within 10 business days, unless a therapist approves a longer wait.
Leaders of the American Psychological Association California Psychological Association recently wrote a letter to Shelley Rouillard, director of the California Department of Managed Health Care, expressing dismay over wait times at Kaiser.
The association’s “position is that follow- appointments at 4-8 week or longer intervals, as alleged by our members, fall far below what is appropriate care for most patients. Psychotherapy efficacy and comparative effectiveness studies are typically based on once a week therapy,” the letter reads.
Pickets at Kaiser in Sacramento area
In the past, the union has picketed Kaiser’s medical centers at 1600 Eureka Road in Roseville, 2025 Morse Ave. in Sacramento and 6600 Bruceville Road in Sacramento during strikes, but local Kaiser therapists also work at a number of sites outside the hospitals.
Catsavas said the union has used strikes as a bargaining tactic each time it has negotiated a new contract over the last 12 years. The company regularly prepares comprehensive contingency plans and will ensure that members receive the care they need, should the union move forward with the strike.
“Despite the unethical and counterproductive tactics by NUHW’s leadership, we are committed to bargaining in good faith to reach a fair and equitable agreement that is good for our therapists and our patients,” Catsavas said.
Union President Sal Rosselli said that Kaiser is short-changing the government agencies, employers and consumers who pay for health insurance coverage.
“We don’t take striking lightly but it’s time to take a stand and make Kaiser spend some of its billions on mental health care. Our members plan to use the tools of a union to achieve for their patients the care they deserve and parity required by law,” he said.
More patients seek mental health care
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a record number of people have reported experiencing depression, stress and anxiety, Rosselli said. In July, the American Medical Association and seven other leading physician organizations called for a unified and collective effort by stakeholders across the health care system to help resolve parity issues and get help Americans needing behavioral health care.
Soroken and Rosselli say Kaiser has not staffed adequately to invest in additional staff. The problem isn’t that there is a dearth of available, qualified therapists in most regions, they said, but that many therapists do not want to take on the workload required at Kaiser.
Current behavioral health workers are experiencing burnout because, in addition to the sessions they have with patients, they must also write their notes after the session has ended and connect patients to other resources they need to be successful.
The California Department of Managed Health Care announced in May that it had logged an increase in patient complaints regarding access to Kaiser’s mental health services and had consequently launched a probe.
The Bee reported in June that internal Kaiser documents showed that patients who received an initial mental health assessment on June 13 weren’t scheduled for follow-up appointments for more than two months in Sacramento and three months or more in other parts of Northern California.
