Kaiser Permanente’s long-standing deficiencies in providing mental health care to its patients led to a $200 million settlement with the state of California that was labeled historic. The settlement included a $50 million fine, the largest ever levied against a health plan by the state’s Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC). But that was largely a numbers game.
Considering that Kaiser drove a record $8.1 billion in net revenue as recently as 2021, the health care behemoth can handle the fine. But what happens next? And how will anyone know whether Kaiser is actually planning the buildout of its mental health programs, as the DMHC settlement calls for?
