You could be forgiven for wondering why the name Benjamin Chu seems to appear whenever there is some questionable organization breaking the boundary that is supposed to exist between not-for-profit and for-profit healthcare. Ben Chu, who reports to George Halvorson, serves as the Southern California regional president for the not-for-profit Kaiser Foundation Health Plan.
You might recall that, earlier this year, the Connecticut Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, admonished a group of healthcare executives, including Dr. Chu, for allowing “undue and improper influence” (that is, money) to potentially affect purchasing decisions at their not-for-profit organizations. It turned out that Dr. Chu and about three dozen other not-for-profit healthcare “leaders” had set up a firm called the Healthcare Research and Development Institute, or HRDI, a fancy name for an organization that apparently served to funnel perks from for-profit healthcare vendors to for-profit executives.
(Incidentally, Dr. Chu wasn’t the only Kaiser Permanente individual benefiting from HRDI. We later found out that Thomas Chapman was in on the game as well; Dr. Chapman serves on the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals board, and also was an “individual member” of HRDI.)
Fast forward to today, and take note of a little organization called “AHA Solutions, Inc.” Tim, over at HIStalk, says it better than I ever could:
What the hell is the American Hospital Association doing running a for-profit subsidiary that shills vendor products to its members?
Perhaps we should let “AHA Solutions” speak for themselves:
AHA Solutions, Inc. is a for-profit subsidiary of the American Hospital Association. Our job is to “cut through the clutter” for AHA members by finding products and services that efficiently and effectively satisfy a hospital’s core operating needs. These high-quality products and services – provided by vendors that pass our tests for flexibility, stability, and customer service – are awarded the AHA endorsement.
That setup sounds so oddly improper familiar, does it not? Coincidentally, I’m sure, Dr. Chu just so happens to serve on the board of AHA. Could it be that once the Attorney General shut down HRDI, the scheme just up and moved to a new subsidiary of AHA? No, never.
Unfortunately, the never ending string of demonstrated lapses in ethics and judgment by Kaiser Permanente executives doesn’t end there. Kaiser Thrive has the story of a $3 million fine being levied against Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest in the history of the Department of Managed Health Care, for KP’s “haphazard investigations of questionable care, physician performance and patient complaints at its California hospitals.”
After hearing that, you might not be shocked to learn that Dr. Chu heads up Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, in Southern California, as well.
The $3 million fine is probably second to the $5 million penalty imposed on Kaiser Permanente just a few months ago by the Department of Managed Health Care. But, for an organization that generates more revenue each year than Disney, American Express, and even Coca-Cola, what’s a few million here to make some serious issues yesterday’s news?
This story was originally posted at justendeal.com.
