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.