Former Executive Blows Whistle on Kaiser Health

LOS ANGELES (CN) - A former Kaiser executive says the health insurer fired him after he complained of company practices that cost policyholders millions of dollars and exposed their medical records. John Denning says Kaiser illegally refused to track patients' deductible payments, but insisted that patients "bring in a shoe box" full of receipts to show that they had met their deductible.

He claims Kaiser refused to set up a tracking system so it could keep millions of dollars in deductible charges that should have been covered by its insurance plans.

In his Superior Court complaint, Denning also claims that Kaiser failed to safeguard patient records. He says it placed its dementia registry on an unsecured network, exposing the confidential medical information of all its dementia patients in Northern California.

And he claims Kaiser dumped "thousands" of unshredded patient records into unlocked Dumpsters, including patients' diagnoses, prescriptions and banking information.

Denning says he reported his concerns to Kaiser's National Compliance Hotline, but Kaiser refused to investigate. Instead, Kaiser and Denning's boss, Rob Munson, allegedly launched a "campaign of retaliation and harassment" to force him to quit. When that didn't work, Denning says, Kaiser assigned its "Grim Reaper" to his case. The Grim Reaper is a human resources investigator with the reputation for "engineering the termination of targeted employees," Denning says.

Denning claims that despite a stellar performance history and numerous promotions, Kaiser put him on administrative leave and then fired him.

He demands punitive damages for fraud, defamation, hostile workplace, harassment, retaliation and violations of public policy. He is represented by Charles Mathews and Deborah Hoetger of San Marino.

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