Insurers limiting doctors, hospitals in health insurance market

[Ms. Toad]

4. I've been on Kaiser twice

The first time I never saw the same primary care doctor twice - their turnover was so high that by the time my next check-up rolled around the last doctor I'd selected for my PCP had left the practice. And the only competent GYN doc was not accepting new patients - so I had to go to a doctor whose approach was to tell me I couldn't possibly have PID since I wasn't sexually active. Problem with that theory: (1) I originally acquired PID was when I was not sexually active (2) he only inquired about intercourse - not a term my (same gender) wife and I use to describe our sexual activity. When I pointed that out to him, he asked how I was treated the previous time and prescribed the same medication again. End of story.

Second time around the doctors were fine, since we were permitted to choose a community based PCP (and use community based specialists). The administration was a nightmare (I spent 100s of hours correcting their claim processing errors), and when they decided to eliminate all community based providers (in a geographical area where Kaiser does not have a sufficient footprint to handle its customer base), my company switched to a different insurance company provider (and got us more comprehensive care, a much larger provider list, and better coverage for a lower premium).