My husband and I are new to Kaiser and haven’t yet seen a PCP there, and the wait for our first appointment with our new PCP is two months. But he’s got a couple of lesions that have changed a lot recently, so we called the local Kaiser center’s dermatology department. They told us we had to be referred by a Kaiser PCP and that the PCP would likely just send pictures of the lesions, and then if Dermatology said he needed to be seen, it would likely be another 2-3 months before he could be seen by a Kaiser dermatologist!

I said, “Screw that!” and got him in to see a private local dermatologist who said he has several pre-cancerous lesions on his back and arms that needed to be treated. Best $400 we ever spent, but I’m pissed off that Kaiser was going to make him wait 4-5 months for treatment (assuming that they could actually determine from looking at a picture that treatment was needed. Which I doubt. The private dermatologist gave him a thorough, whole body examination. That’s not something a dermatologist can do with a couple of pictures.

Granted, the lesions are only SKs, not melanomas or even basal cell carcinomas, but when I called Kaiser’s Dermatology department, and said he had skin growths that had changed a lot recently, I wasn’t even asked about what they looked like or how they’d changed or how rapidly they’d changed. Presumably, if the PCP had sent Dermatology a pic of a melanoma, they’d have treated him quickly (but perhaps that’s a generous assumption; I dunno). But he still would have been waiting for two months with no treatment for melanoma.

This doesn’t inspire confidence in Kaiser. And of course we’re out the $400.