With negotiations going nowhere between Kaiser Permanente and roughly 2,400 striking mental health care professionals in Southern California, state officials are turning to a connected concern: making sure history does not repeat itself.
The Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) announced last week that it will monitor Kaiser patients’ access to mental and behavioral services during the open-ended work stoppage that began Oct. 21, to be sure the health giant continues to provide adequate care, which it conspicuously failed to do when it canceled more than 100,000 appointments during a 2022 strike.
