Kaiser Pays $49 Million to Settle Improper Disposal Investigation
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has announced a $49 million settlement has been reached with Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Foundation Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals to resolve allegations of improper disposal of hazardous waste, medical waste, and protected health information.
Oakland, CA-based Kaiser is the largest healthcare provider in California with more than 700 healthcare facilities in the state, serving more than 8.8 million patients. An investigation was launched by 6 district attorneys from Alameda, San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, and Yolo counties into the unlawful dumping of dangerous items. Undercover staff from the district attorneys’ offices inspected dumpsters at 16 different Kaiser facilities. The dumpsters were not secured and the contents were destined for disposal in landfill sites.
The inspectors found hundreds of items of hazardous and medical waste, including aerosols, cleansers, sanitizers, batteries, syringes, medical tubing containing body fluids, pharmaceuticals, and electronic wastes. The dumpsters also contained more than 10,000 paper records that contained the protected health information of 7,700 patients. The California Department of Justice later joined the investigation and expanded it statewide at other Kaiser facilities. Kaiser was alleged to have violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and California’s Hazardous Waste Control Law, Medical Waste Management Act, Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, Customer Records Law, and Unfair Competition Law.
In response to the investigation, Kaiser engaged a third-party consultant to conduct more than 1,100 trash audits at its facilities and its operating procedures have been updated to ensure proper waste disposal across its facilities in California. The settlement consists of $37,513,000 in civil penalties, $4,832,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs, and $4,905,000 for supplemental environmental projects. A further $1.75 million in civil monetary penalties must be paid if Kaiser has not invested a further $3.5 million in its Californian facilities to provide enhanced environmental compliance measures.
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Kaiser is also required to retain an independent third-party auditor to conduct more than 520 trash compactor audits at its California facilities to make sure hazardous items and protected health information are not being disposed of in regular trash, and at least 40 programmatic field audits must be conducted each year for the next 5 years to evaluate compliance with its policies covering hazardous waste, medical waste, and protected health information.
“The illegal disposal of hazardous and medical waste puts the environment, workers, and the public at risk. It also violates numerous federal and state laws,” said Attorney General Bonta. “As a healthcare provider, Kaiser should know that it has specific legal obligations to properly dispose of medical waste and safeguard patients’ medical information. I am pleased that Kaiser has been cooperative with my office and the district attorneys’ offices, and that it took immediate action to address the alleged violations.”
