How to Get Therapy or Mental Health Care Under Kaiser Permanente

As Always Avoid Alliteration slowly turns into something more resembling a professional blog, rather than a source of ad revenue, I hesitated to post this guide as there is a stigma around mental heath. I've decided that if being open, honest, and helpful about my experiences in trying to find a mental health provider puts me at risk of not receiving a job offer in the future, I'm better off for it. If this helps one person, then it's all more than worthwhile. The way in which Kaiser Permanente operates is far more shameful than anything I am going to say here. I initially wrote this post as a forum post, replying to someone else who was experiencing the same issues with Kaiser Permanente Mental Health Services. I have somewhat expanded on and cleaned up that initial post. 

If you are experiencing crisis and need to talk to someone immediately call 1-800-309-2131 at any time of day. If you're paranoid you can dial *67 first and this will mask your phone number. You can also call in using a free Google Voice number.

I want to set the expectation with you that Kaiser's mental health system is specifically made to be negligent and discourage anyone who is experiencing mental health issues from actually using their services. In October 2023 Kaiser settled with the state of California in regards to not providing mental health care that they were legally required to provide. Second article. This is also not the first time Kaiser has been fined for this exact same problem. Impacted patients will receive no compensation as a result of this settlement. At the end of the day, there's a litany of reasons why Kaiser Legal has multiple floors of office space in a building overlooking Lake Merritt.

Here are the steps to receive mental health care from Kaiser Permanente. I'd recommend reading through all of the steps before starting your journey:

1. Call the Kaiser Mental Health office local to you (Google your local number).

2. Almost certainly leave a voicemail for an appointment. Kaiser will say that they will call you back in 48 hours. They almost certainly wont. You can kill two birds with one stone by preemptively leaving a bad Google review while you're on hold to leave a voicemail, for what it's worth.

3. Repeat this process, playing phone tag until you get someone on the phone. If Kaiser can't reach you on the phone this is where this process ends and you will need to call them back.

4. Once you get someone on the phone, Kaiser will try to offer you an appointment with a Kaiser therapist in three months, or if you're lucky, you'll get an outside referral right off the bat. Ask for one right away if the soonest you can get an appointment is more than a month away.

Optional step: If you get a Kaiser therapist plan to be stood up on your appointment in three months or plan to have the appointment cancelled the day before. In California you need to file a compliant with Kaiser about this before escalating to the state. (In California you have the right to timely access to care.) This requires documenting every phone call and appointment in forms they provide, and then again on forms the state provides. So if you have the energy to file a complaint, start documenting every phone call and conversation you have. Kaiser meanwhile will provide documentation of every single time they've called you and every appointment they've offered. The intention is to paint a picture that you the individual trying to get mental healthcare are the one that has been inaccessible this whole time, not them the giant company with thousands of workers who aren't staffed appropriately to pick up the phone or call you back.  

5. Call the outside referral program and have them find a therapist for you. While they will provide you a list of therapists you can call yourself, they usually know of a few that are actively open to receiving new clients. Around the time I went through this process I literally called over 50 therapists and did not get a single call back.

Optional step: While calling around I got a more than one recordings saying the therapist I called is not accepting any male or cisgender male clients. This is illegal in my state of California. If this happens, and you have the energy, record the recordings and file complaints with your state's mental health board or board of psychology.

6. Repeat steps 1 through 3 with the outside referral program. They tend to be more professional than anyone at Kaiser that you'll talk to and will actually call you back in the time frame that they give you. If you go longer than a week without getting a therapist with the outside referral, Kaiser is pretty good about just giving you a different outside referral once you have one, and renewing your referral once you have a therapist you like. 

 

7. Expect to initially get a few really bad therapists before landing on one that rocks. Plan to continue looking for a therapist again after a few sessions while continuing to see the therapist you have.

As I stated at the beginning: Kaiser's mental health system is specifically made to be negligent and discourage anyone from experiencing mental health issues from actually using the service. Good luck and I'm sorry that you had to read this article.