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Metzler v. Kaiser

Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) and co-counsel, John Burris, filed suit against Kaiser Permanente, California's largest HMO, alleging that Kaiser had neglected the medical needs of people with disabilities. The lawsuit was the first of its kind in the country. In March of 2001, DRA settled the lawsuit with a creative and landmark settlement that can be a model for the healthcare industry as a whole on how to deliver medical care for disabled men, women, and children.

The parties entered into a very broad settlement which requires Kaiser to remedy a range of access barriers present in Kaiser facilities throughout the state, including architectural barriers, inaccessible medical equipment, and Kaiser policies and procedures that create access barriers for patients with disabilities.

Although DRA was able to resolve the lawsuit against Kaiser productively and amicably, the fact remains that within the healthcare industry as a whole the problems that existed at Kaiser prior to this lawsuit remain. People with disabilities have special needs that the healthcare establishment has never met. A combination of inaccessible medical equipment, diagnostic procedures that do not take account of disability, architectural barriers in caregiving facilities, and medical procedures, protocols and doctors' attitudes have all resulted in the delivery of inferior medical care to men, women, and children with disabilities. Studies have shown that women with severe disabilities get half as many mammograms and pap smears as women without disabilities. Although accessible mammography equipment exists, very few providers use them. Across the country, people with disabilities go for years without being weighed, simply because the health care provider had failed to purchase a low-cost scale that can be used by a person in a wheelchair.

The comprehensive settlement agreement and subsequent plan developed by the parties to review and reform Kaiser's facilities and policies provide a model for the healthcare industry as a whole.

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