Surgery delays at Kaiser Roseville frustrate patient who pays ‘good money for insurance’

A Kaiser Permanente member said she is frustrated that she’s paying “good money for health insurance and will have waited a year for a hysterectomy” to end her pain and discomfort.

The patient spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing her care could be affected if The Sacramento Bee disclosed her name.

A teacher and mother of two young children, she said she and her doctor initially began in March to attempt to schedule her surgery at Kaiser Roseville Medical Center, but they encountered delays. At the time, she said, Kaiser representatives told her that they were working through a backlog of surgeries that were postponed from the first year of the pandemic.

In a statement sent to The Bee, Kaiser Permanente leaders said: “We have accommodated urgent care needs throughout the pandemic, and as the number of patients with COVID-19 decline, we expect to reach typical scheduling lead times for non-urgent cases within days. We look forward to expanding surgical capacity as soon as feasible while assuring the safety of all of our patients and staff.”

A day after The Bee’s inquiry, Kaiser contacted the patient to reschedule her procedure. She expressed surprise that they had done so, since she had been contacting them regularly over the last eight weeks to get on their calendar.

She said she previously had been given an August date for her hysterectomy, but it was canceled 10 days beforehand.

“I’d already had my pre-surgery meeting with my doctor,” the Kaiser patient said. “She called to let me know that they were canceling all surgeries that were not trauma- or cancer-related, while the delta variant (of COVID-19) was on the rise and ... there weren’t enough ICU beds and ventilators.”

The patient said she does not understand why Kaiser has not figured out how to manage the needs of current patients alongside demands from patients sickened with COVID-19.

She said she would have preferred to keep her August appointment, even if it meant having the procedure at a Kaiser facility as far away as the Bay Area because she already had arranged child care for her children.

Kaiser, however, did not present her with any alternatives at the time of cancellation or since then, she said.

Are the delays in surgeries unique to Kaiser’s local hospitals?

As it turns out, they are not. Dignity Health officials said they also have had to delay some surgeries and procedures. UC Davis Health officials said they have not done so, and Sutter Health did not respond to The Bee’s query.

Dignity Health officials noted in a statement to The Bee that “during the peak of the recent delta surge, Dignity Health hospitals in Northern California collectively experienced a 288% increase in COVID-19 related hospitalizations. Due to the influx of patients needing our care and ongoing staffing challenges related to the pandemic, we have had to periodically reschedule some elective and non-emergent surgeries.”

Just as with Kaiser, Dignity officials said they continued emergency procedures and treatment for patients with life-threatening conditions. Now that COVID-19 cases are trending downward, Dignity officials said, they are hopeful that any future disruptions will be limited.

The Kaiser patient, however, said she is concerned that cases of both COVID-19 and influenza will surge in fall and winter, leading to further delays in the surgery she needs. Dignity officials urged community residents to get vaccinated to assure that hospital resources are available to all who need them.