A few years back I had a kerfuffle with Kaiser and HPD (and it's posted on the forum). Bottom
line is that Kaiser made an error and disqualified me for a PTA.  HPD gave me the letter that has
been posted here.

When I went to my doctor (Dr Minami) he told me by letter that physicians at Kaiser
Hawaii do not personally participate in the disqualification of applicants for firearms.
It was in a form letter and I hope I kept it.  When I finally got the problem straightened
out I found that Kaiser Admin is (at that time at least) the party within Kaiser that communicated
with HPD, not my personal doctor.

The manager at Kaiser Admin told me that they look at my medical record for the account
codes associated with the psychology department - that's what the problem was for me, a
new employee simply say a psych account charge and sent a letter of disqualification
without further investigation. The Kaiser Admin manager told me that the proper procedure
was to refer the matter to a supervisor which will check deeeper into the type of account coding
this was. She said there are strict rules on what Admin can see in your record. What this code was
is a referral to a nutritionist (I'm overweight). That's all it was.

Kaiser apologized and verified with HPD that there was no problem (in fact, I had applied several
times since the disqualification for PTAs and had no problem. That was the aggravating fact of the
deal was that I was disqualified in August 2012 but HPD didn't catch up for 14 months, wtf?).

I found Kaiser to be very, very helpful and honest about the error with me, apologized and
contacted HPD (twice) to inform them that I was disqualified in error.

The letter posted here from HPD is the exact same letter given to me by HPD to take to my doctor.
Verbatim. So this has been around for awhile. I suspect that when there is a problem, like a
previous illness or condition, this letter is issued for clearance above and beyond the normal
clearance given.

So what you guys are describing here is a dramatic change in policy since the fall of 2013
when I went thru this.  When I shared this letter from HPD with a firearms owner who
is a local attorney, he was a bit surprised at the content and tone. He described it as
belligerent and probably not written by an attorney but a layperson. He wondered if any doctor
would sign this. 

I am going to contact Kaiser Admin soon to verfiy this new policy. 

It looks like my issue has been resolved as far as Kaiser Permanente is concerned.

Today I spoke to Lisa Teves from Kaiser Permanente and she told me why HPD is requesting that I get a clearance for a handgun permit.

Se said that in August of 2013, Kaiser sent a letter to HPD disqualifying me from getting a permit to acquire.  She then told me that letter was in sent in error.

However since no one contacted them for the August 2013 letter, they didn't do anything.

She said that one of the assistants in the office responsible for the review misinterpreted the information on my record as a disqualification. 

They had a meeting about this with the whole office and discussed what the correct interpretation is for Kaiser to disqualify an applicant. She said they made sure that whomever is looking at the medical records to verify with a supervisor before sending the letter for disqualification to HPD.

The issue was that I had seen a specialist for my diabetes management who is in the behavioral department. The admin person saw that and did not question what the visit to that department was for.

That erroneous letter was sent in August of 2013!

Lisa checked my records and saw that I was correctly checked 4 times for disqualification since August of 2013 in the application process; even with my latest application on November 24th Kaiser sent a letter to HPD stating there was no disqualification for me to acquire a firearm.

She did not know directly about my problem with this application until I complained to the Admin last week.  She reviewed my information and contacted Officer Mau at the Firearms Section to clear this up. She questioned why they were using an old disqualification letter when subsequent approvals had been received. She said she did not get an answer from Officer Mau on this point.  She told HPD Firearms that she is sending another letter to them stating that this letter from August 2013 is a mistake and that my record is clean of any disqualifying information.

So the bottom line is that Kaiser made a mistake and is now making good on it. Lisa said she is sending me a copy of the letter they sent to HPD to clarify that the disqualification in August of 2013 was a mistake.

I asked about the process since my doctor says he doesn't make these approvals and she said that Kaiser responds to ALL requests from HPD on firearms clearances.  My doctor is not involved with this, only a small group is responsible for this function. She said it is rare that they disqualify someone.

She apologized for the error.  I thanked her for following thru on this.

So this week I will go pick up my permit to acquire a 1911 pistol. 

I too have been thrown into this process with Kaiser versus HPD on an application to acquire a handgun.

As the original post and others have posted, I have had no problem with renewing and acquiring through out this year.

I renewed my long gun permit in August - no problem.

I applied and acquired a handgun in September - no problem.

On Monday, November 24, 2014, filled out  the forms at HPD to get a permit to acquire a handgun (from a private owner). 

On Tuesday at 6AM, I received a call from the Firearms Section of HPD telling me that I needed another form to have filled out by Kaiser.

I picked up the form and dropped it off for my doctor to sign.

My doctor called me back that same day and told me that he doesn't do this, that Kaiser has a policy not to "approve" firearms purchases.

On Wednesday, November 26, I went to Kaiser and spoke to Daisy at Kaiser Administration, Honolulu Clinic.  She told me she didn't know why but that recently it came to here attention that this is Kaiser's policy because she had received a similar contact from another Kaiser member. She said she will have a "PCE or PCS", a physician I guess, who will contact me about this issue.

I then went to HPD to explain that I was having problems with Kaiser and its "new" policy.  They, the officers at the Firearms window told me that they were aware of this issue with Kaiser and nicely referred me to Harvey Gerwig, President of the HRA, who happened to be there to see an administrator about the issue of medical clearance.

I received the same documents of others as posted already and was given the same "solution"; that is to pay for my own psychologist or doctor to view my records from Kaiser and then sign off as HPD is requesting.

What the letter from HPD's request to the doctor assumes is that the subject has been identified as someone who has been diagnosed as had/has some mental defect or treatment for addiction.   Hence the language that the subject is no longer affected by mental defect of addiction.

The most egregious statement on the letter is that the doctor is "approving" me to acquire and own a firearm and ammunition.  That right there is a legal problem - my doctor doesn't make an approval, he/she can disqualifies me.

But no one will tell me what the problem is exactly.  No one has told me that it was for this or that condition. 

I have been advised that if I don't follow the suggestion to get an independent evaluation and let the permit process play out, I will be rejected after 20 days and then HPD will have to state in a letter why I was rejected.  I believe that a doctor will NOT disqualify me but they will have to right a letter to the positive, which I think is wrong.

However this letter from HPD may be so vague as to say that the medical clearance was not received (for what?).

Perhaps the issue on the confusing communications may be from the HIPPA Act …

What I found interesting in my talking with HPD is that they send a letter to Kaiser for medical clearance.  If they don't receive a reply within the allotted time frame (the first 14 days) they will issue the permit. So NO reply is not problem. 

So in my case something happened because HPD called me in less than 24 hours after I applied.  Since they are not doing it blanket for all Kaiser members, then the possibility is that there has been some correspondence from Kaiser from my last application that has somehow triggered this problem. Harvey Gerwig alluded to this because HPD is so far behind in it's paper work and perhaps Kaiser is too.

Harvey Gerwig told me that there are known issues standing between Kaiser, HPD and the Hawaii State's Attorney General. He told me that even the letter that is sent to Kaiser in the first place he has issues with.  He believes that HPD wants to resolve the issue as it is starting to make there process more and more difficult.

I find it very unsettling that I have to retain a another doctor to sign a letter that I think Kaiser should be required to sign off on.