Working at Kaiser Permanente as a Doctor

This is a rather simple article which I’ve been meaning to write for a few years. I left Kaiser Permanente in 2017 and it was a difficult decision at the time. I don’t have any regrets now. Here is my review of working at Kaiser Permanente as a doctor.

Starting at Kaiser Permanente

My journey at Kaiser began in 2009. It was the first job out of residency which I started in the San Diego region. I started out as an urgentologist and did some cross coverage in family medicine and pediatrics as well.

What was great about the experience is that I had a lot of support. Like most young attendings I was a little unsure of what to expect. I had access to many different doctors working next door whom I could hit up for info.

Also, at Kaiser Permanente, you can call up any specialist and ask them for advice as to what to do with a patient who is having breakthrough bleeding on hormones or worsening of their diabetic foot ulcer.

Growing at KP

Working at KP was generally fun for my personality type. I was efficient and had a good sense of humor. I made friends with fellow doctors and the PA’s and NP’s came to me with questions.

Most of the nurses were friendly but they were unionized and less worried about performance. This meant they weren’t too worried about getting fired for incompetence.

I eventually took some small leadership positions and after a few years at KP in San Diego I moved over to the Kaiser Permanente in Portland, Oregon to become a PIC – basically, a medical director.

After one year being a medical director, I became the assistant chief of the urgent care department. I tested out if I wanted to become a chief but realized it wasn’t for me. I was done with leadership work.

Dealing with Managmeent

It’s true, most people who go into leadership do it for the title and they have personalities to match. I am ashamed to say that in my leadership roles I didn’t always make the best decisions. I took the hammer approach and became a little too harsh.

I knew how to fake empathy which back then I thought was real empathy. But in the end, I alienated a lot of clinicians who could have used more support. This is likely how you might feel when dealing with management.

Working as a doctor at Kaiser Permanente you’ll experience the top-down approach. Decisions are made behind closed doors and slide down to you.

When talking to other physicians who had been at KP for a while, it was all about getting to the next year. Many were counting down the years they needed before vesting and being able to retire.

Though, when you look at the online reviews for being a doctor at KP it seems many were happy. Though some apparently were working in the TX KP which doesn’t exist and many are nurse anesthetists.

The Patient Population

KP bids for big contracts with unionized groups. Many individuals got their insurance through their employer. They didn’t pay for it and often placed exactly that much effort into their health.

I’m majorly generalizing, of course. I had wonderful patients whom I’d see in the urgent care regularly. Sadly, because they couldn’t get in with their PCP – the waits were too long.

There is no patient empowerment at KP. None. I didn’t even know about this phrase until I left the Kaiserverse. In fact, I think this is something valuable to add to your patient population when you’re such a behemoth of a medical group.

Moving Between Kaiser Groups

I had no trouble having my benefits transfer right over from my medical group at SCPMG to PNWMG. I picked up right where I left off.

I still had to put in 1 year before becoming a partner again but that didn’t deduct from my contributed years. My pension halted at that point but I picked up with a cash balance plan. No biggy.

The people at Kaiser PNW were really cool. I really enjoyed working with my new colleagues and felt that even the management was a little less burnt out and more engaging.

But I also was high up in the management. I suspect people treated me differently and I engaged with a different group. When talking to colleagues on the battlefield, seeing patients in the clinic, they expressed the same level of frustration and burnout.

Retirement and Benefits

I am convinced that most of us doctors stayed at KP because the potential of our future wealth was so high. The golden handcuffs, right?

You get disability, malpractice, health insurance, retirement benefits, and you vest in all these somewhere in the 5-10 year range.

Unfortunately, when I needed my malpractice insurance KP refused to pay for it. I had to deal with the state medical board and I knew I had coverage for this through my insurance. When my lawyer and I called up KP their attorneys said that it wasn’t in their best interest to cover me.

You can’t argue with that – if I had to pay out something for someone else I also wouldn’t think it’s in my best interest financially. But that’s sort of what you count on when you dedicate so many years to KP.

Work Opportunities at Kaiser

When I started at KP I was really in love with medicine. I had so many opportunities for picking up extra shifts.

I worked in the fast-track in the ER. I worked at employee health. I did the urgent care and primary care and I picked up shifts in pediatrics. It was wonderful.

I learned so much working at Kaiser. I wouldn’t say I learned a lot because the way medicine is practiced out in the community is very different. You don’t get to learn about all the specialty meds and unique surgeries and treatments.

But working at KP you can move into management, virtual medicine, and move into different departments. You can work part-time or full-time or pick up extra shifts.

Just don’t think anyone will let you go from full-time to part-time. No way. You’ll wait a few years until management will allow you to drop a part of your patient panel.

Working at Kaiser Permanente as a Doctor

In summary, the work was good. The support, very good. The experience overall made me feel like I was an unimportant member in the overall healthcare game.

Your schedule was up to someone else and things always came down from the higher-ups which changed your routine.

I loved the many different work opportunities I got but that was only because I’m pretty aggressive and reached out to so many different departments. My colleagues who tried the same got refused.

In the end, I worked 8 years at KP. I never vested in my pension because I couldn’t stay there for another 2 years. I have the personality type that I like to have consistency but also have options to work when I want and how I want.

The Right Fit

Working at KP you’ll be put into a small box but you’ll be given a lot of resources. The expectation from you isn’t high but all the little things you have to do add up and drain you by the end of the day.

The stability of the work and the benefits and of course the income is solid – you won’t complain. But you can earn far more being an independent contractor at KP while maintaining your freedom.

For someone who wants to really grow roots into one system and never think about another option, KP is really good. They try to deliver good healthcare and treat their doctors well.

If I were to design a system that treats a lot of people and has an overall good outcome, I’d build a KP. If I were to design a system that treated each patient and doctor fairly and to high standards, I’d create the opposite of KP.

My Career Path

I was on a path to get out of the medicine game early. I worked 40-50 hours a week and paid down my debt and saved and invested a lot.

By age 39 I had enough money to retire – that was one of the main reasons I stopped working at KP as a doctor. My investments earned me enough to sustain my lifestyle.

Later I got interested in healthcare consulting and some telemedicine. I have been doing a little bit of that here and there. My relationship with medicine has changed in a good way and I’m still figuring some things out.