I have Northern California Kaiser and am very pleased with it (been a member for nearly 50 years). I like the fact that doctor offices, lab, x-ray, hospital services, pharmacy, ect. are all on one campus. Never had a problem with specialty referrals. You can order med refills online and can email your doctors directly. You can also opt for a phone appointment $0 copay), if you do not need to physically see your doctor, but want to discuss issues. Another plus is that there is no approval process. If a plan doctor orders something, it is automatically approved. I have even been able to get non formulary drugs at regular copays as long as my doctor orders them with an exception code.

Kaiser is a not for profit provider, so is very cost conscious. So, if you like being able to insist on expensive tests and imaging without a clear medical need, Kaiser is not for you. They are big on disease prevention too.

Jan

Thanks for your comments, Jan. I didn't realy understand til I just re read that there's a choice of Kaiser HMO and PPO. Do you have the PPO? It sounds like you have good ability to communicate with your doctors. I'm surprised there are no posters from L.A. I hope it's not that none of the Dr.s are liked well enough to be recommended.

My surgeon is at ucla, his name is Dr. Sac, he very knowledgable, he is a rectal specialist, but not a GI. Very understanding. Also check out ileostomy-surgerey.com thetevare located in hollywood

There are some terrific CR surgeons in LA; Fleshner at Cedars Sinai, Vukasin at Glendale Memorial, Moro in OC. Kaiser in SoCal is not rated as highly as Kaiser in Norcal. Cedars Sinai also has a great GI team and I'm sure UCLA and USC do too.

Sue

I see Dr Fleshner at Cedars. He is a colo-rectal surgeon. He is well know for j-pouches and I highly recommend him.

hi i will recommend a dr. melmed in l.a..he has been recommended to me from dr.shen for my l.a. dr. he is very knowledgeable about pouches...he likes to see you about every three months to keep current as to your condition..

Thanks for the recommendations. I believe Dr. Melmed is only at Cedars Sinai which does not appear to be in-network, tho' he seems to be on the in-network list. We made an appointment with Dr. Hwangs young partner, Dr. Sheibani at USC. Hoping she is good.

A little off topic, but in 9 hospital stays at 3 different hospitals, her GI never happened to be on the "in-patient" schedule so she always ended up being cared for by a partner she'd never seen before!

I had j-pouch surgery done by Dr. Jonathan Sack at UCLA. He is amazing!!!! I don't even have a GI doctor anymore, I see him for anything I need GI/Pouch related. He is very thorough and always make me feel like I am his only patient. I don't know if you're still looking, but I strongly recommend him.