HMO Pays Clerks to Keep Patients from Doctors

According to the June 30, 2002 issue of Physicians Financial News, Kaiser Permanente paid clerks working at three northern California call centers bonuses for limiting the number of doctors appointments they set up, and for limiting the duration of patients' phone calls.  The call centers are set up to take calls from patients who, among other things, think they have a medical problem needing attention.  

A Kaiser spokesperson - in a statement announcing that the practice has now been discontinued - admitted that clerks received between 2 and 4% of their salaries as bonuses if certain criteria were met. In order to receive their bonuses, the clerks - who usually have little or no medical training - were expected to make appointments for less than 35% of the callers, to spend an average of less than 3 minutes and 45 seconds per call, and to transfer less than 50% of their calls to registered nurses for further evaluation.

California state regulators, expressing concern, have begun looking into this practice.

DrRich comments

There really isn't much to say here, except that it seems more humane to pay clerks a bonus for doing what their employer needs them to do than the alternative. One suspects that Kaiser, called out by the nurses union, regulators and other do-gooders, has perhaps now been forced to resort to covert threats, terminations, and arbitrary scheduling practices to get the clerks to do their job right.

It just doesn't seem fair.

July, 2002

Back to news and commentary

YourDoctorintheFamily.com Home Page