Arnold A Yashar, M.D.

I saw Dr. Yashar because of pain in my right knee. He suggested I may need a complete knee replacement. I’ve had a weight problem my whole life, even though I exercise faithfully, and honestly watch what I eat. Dr. Yashar I could tell didn’t believe me and rudely asked me what I eat every day. I couldn’t believe it. He then proceeded to tell me because of my weight I would get a terrible infection in my knee if I had the knee replacement. He said I would wish I was dead rather than to go through that pain. He shocked me, and honestly I was speechless.
He suggested that he give me an injection of hyaluronic acid which comes from rooster combs. Dr. Yashar injected it and then left the room. I stood up and almost fell to the floor. He didn’t tell me I might feel this pain. I took 15 minutes to get to my car because I had to keep stopping due to the pain.
I recently had a complete right knee replacement from a Sharp surgeon and I’ve healed beautifully. I had no infection and instead am above average where I should be at 7 weeks post surgery. I plan on taking a picture of myself so Dr. Yashar will remember me and send him a letter telling him how wrong and rude he was. No use making a complaint with Kaiser, it goes nowhere. PLEASE, don’t let this man touch you.

Dr. Yashar replaced both my hips about 4+ years ago. He seemed very competent when I talked to him, and the whole process went fairly well, I thought. However, my right hip, the first replacement, resulted in a slightly longer leg, so he adjusted when replacing the left hip. For some unknown reason, the swelling on the first operation was substantially greater than the swelling from the second hip replacement.
My major issue with Dr. Yashar’s service was that he did not offer or recommend any physical therapy following either operation. He said he «didn’t believe» it was normally necessary. I foolishly went along with it, and just resumed normal activities.
The result was that in the last couple of years, I have fallen a couple of times while hiking as a result of being unable to get my feet back under me when I trip on something. I began my own version of strength exercises for my legs each evening, and have had pretty good results.
However, I recently read a medical article which indicated that physical therapy after knee and hip surgery is extremely important. The reason given was that, after such surgery, there is space where the muscles existed that need to be filled in with new muscle through proper exercise. In the absence of such exercise, the space is instead filled largely with scar tissue, leaving a weakened limb.
I believe that is what happened in my case.
If Kaiser reads this, it should make certain that Dr. Yashar understands the importance of physical therapy, and that he gets a «belief» in it.

My experience with this guy was the same as yours. I’m not the type of person who would normally write a review but I do read them frequently. It was like reading my own horror story. Two years ago knee replacement cut political artery, nearly bled out, rushed from Coronado hospital to Kaiser Zion. Seven hour surgery by a brilliant vascular surgeon who saved my leg and LIFE. My life has changed drastically and like you said can’t sue only arbitrate and no attorney would take the case because Kaiser doesn’t pay out enough. We have been wronged and neither Kaiser nor Yashar has paid for their culpability. I’m not sure what is needed to start a class action lawsuit but it might be worth looking into if there are more of us out there.

PICK ANY INSURANCE IN THE WORLD, BUT NOT KAISER!!!
So, two hours after posting the original review, I get a Unilocal message from Donna Durckel of Kaiser Member services acting all concerned. She said they made management and the doctor aware of my review and what I went through. She said, what can we do to help you? I said, you never wanted to help me back then after I had the surgery, so I don’t know why you want to help me now when I’m not even a member anymore.
A week goes by, and I get a call from Jaime Krippen, Director of Member Services for Kaiser. She acted very concerned and wanted to know if I wanted to start a grievance process about this situation. I said, sure, why not? She then said, «Mercy, what can we do to make you happy?» I said, «since I couldn’t sue Kaiser, some monetary compensation would be nice considering I lost my whole career because of what the doctor did to me.» She then shocked me by saying, «What figure were you thinking of?» I said I would need to think about it and get back to you. She said the process takes about a month. I agreed to put it in motion.
More than a week goes by and I decide to talk to a friend of a friend who is a medical malpractice lawyer and get his advice. He said he had never heard of Kaiser giving any money at all during a grievance process and certainly not two and a half years out from the surgery. He said… you might get $ 5−10k, but probably not. Prophetic.
Btw, my lawyer friend who turned me onto the med mal lawyer, said he also hates kaiser and that they killed his brother! It was put on his charts to not give him methadone, but they paid no attention to it and he died!
I did all the research online about what you can sue for. From the time I lost my job, till the time I would be retired is a figure you can come up with. Not including any promotions or raises that might have occurred. I also did not include 3 – 5 times the amount of damages for pain and suffering.
I call Jaime back to find out what’s going on. She said, did you get the letter explaining the process from the Senior Case Manager, Brad Jenkins? No, I did not. That took another two weeks to receive.
Brad Jenkins finally calls me and thanked me for sending in a chronology of how it all went down and praised me for sending such an articulate letter. He then said, the director of orthopedics was reviewing the case and would come up with a final verdict.
Drum roll… NOTHING…yes, you heard me right… NOTHING! I wrote that review to just get it off my chest. My body will never be the same after that botched surgery and I never expected them to contact me, THEY CONTACTED ME… WHY???
And, to add insult to injury (literally!), they sent applications in the denial letter to appeal the process… that were SO BADLY copied, I can’t read any of it! Really??!
With Obama’s Healthcare plan coming in soon, Kaiser will lose thousands upon thousands of potential patients. I certainly hope so. I will continue… like many others, to denigrate their level of medical care.
KAISER…KARMA IS REAL AND YOU ARE DOOMED! I’m going to keep your Social Media reps busy, as you know I will be posting this everywhere I can.