Kaiser Permanente plans $400 million metro expansion

By Craig Schneider

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Kaiser Permanente is moving forward on a $400 million expansion of medical facilities in metro Atlanta, officials said Friday.

The five-year plan would add 20 facilities to the company's existing 17 here, with a goal to place all metro Atlantans within a 15-minute drive of a Kaiser medical facility, company officials told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Kaiser, a giant insurer that also owns and operates its own medical facilities, expects to add 500 jobs to the area through the expansion.

The company has already hired an additional 50 doctors this year and expects to bring another 50 on board next year, said Peter Andruszkiewicz, president of Kaiser Permanente of Georgia.

He said the company expects to announce the creation of two to three more facilities within weeks.

Two additional Kaiser medical centers opened within the past two months, in East Cobb and Decatur.

"The important thing is accessibility to our system," he said. "Consumers want more convenience and easier accessibility."

The expansion is aimed at the insurer's 260,000 customers in metro Atlanta. While people with other insurance coverage can use the facilities, they would be charged higher "out-of-network" costs.

No plans are in the works for a Kaiser hospital, though Andruszkiewicz said the possibility has not been ruled out.

The new centers will be about 5,000-square-feet and include a few doctors and specialists, as well as lab facilities, radiology and a pharmacy.

The Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser has been in metro Atlanta for about 24 years, and serves  about 5 percent of the medical market, officials said. The company hopes to expand that to 8 percent in 5 years and to upwards of 15 percent in 10 years.

More specialty services will arrive, as the company moves deeper into providing cardiology, urology and neurology services, officials said.

Andruszkiewicz said the expansion will take advantage of the down real estate market, in which costs are down for rents, property and construction.