Kaiser Strike Highlights AI Concerns in Mental Healthcare | NPR

Approximately 2,400 mental health clinicians at Kaiser Permanente held a one-day Unfair Labor Practice Strike in March 2026, drawing national attention to the growing role of artificial intelligence in patient care. The strike involved workers walking picket lines in Sacramento, Fresno, Santa Rosa, Santa Clara, and Oakland. In Oakland, several hundred workers marched from Kaiser’s Medical Center to its downtown corporate headquarters for a massive rally. The action generated national coverage by NPR, The Guardian, and the Associated Press.

The primary driver of the labor action was a disagreement between Kaiser Permanente and therapists over the future role of AI in mental health care. Workers expressed concerns about Kaiser’s increasing use of artificial intelligence to the detriment of patient care. The strike was predicated on an Unfair Labor Practice charge therapists filed against Kaiser for unilaterally overhauling its system for triaging patients seeking mental health services.

Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a licensed clinical social worker at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, reported that her job started to change in May of the previous year. She noted that she had been reassigned from triage to other duties. According to Marcucci-Morris, the transformation of the triage system meant that what used to always be a 10- to 15-minute screening from a licensed clinician was now being conducted by unlicensed lay operators following a script.

In some instances, e-visits or apps were triaging members’ care needs. Marcucci-Morris stated that part of the unfair labor practice strike was about the erosion of licensed triage within the health plan. She and her colleagues believe this erosion is paving the way for artificial intelligence to take over their jobs. Patients entering Kaiser’s mental healthcare system are no longer guaranteed to talk to a human therapist trained to ask the right questions to determine what kind of treatment they need and how urgently they need it.

We’re standing up for high-quality, human-centered patient care. Kaiser executives say all the right things, but the actions they’re taking are putting the lives of patients at risk, and threatening to further diminish the quality of care patients receive.

Kaiser therapist Melissa Stevens

In response to the concerns raised during the strike, Kaiser Permanente told NPR in an email that the company does not use AI to make medical or any other care decisions. Despite this assurance, the concerns of striking therapists are shared by others in mental health care. Vaile Wright, senior director of health care innovation at the American Psychological Association, noted that there is a lot of fear and anxiety about AI, and in particular, fear around AI replacing jobs.

Wright stated that she has not seen within mental health care any jobs be replaced by AI as of yet. She attributed this stability to the fact that We find no AI digital solutions that can replace human-driven psychotherapy or care. However, Wright acknowledged that many health systems and therapists are increasingly using AI, especially for certain kinds of jobs. She identified one clear, positive use case of AI tools in the use of improving efficiencies around documentation and other automated types of activities.

These automated activities include tasks like billing insurance companies or updating electronic health records, which are often time-consuming. While efficiency tools are one aspect, some tech companies are also making chatbots for health systems to do triage and patient assessments. Dr. John Torous, who directs digital psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, commented on the landscape of these emerging technologies.

A lot of the tools are exciting, but they’re not well-tested.

Psychiatrist Dr. John Torous

Torous suggested that whether providers like it or not, AI is here to stay. He expressed the belief that AI is going to transform the future of mental health care for better. He argued that providers can no longer refuse to use the technology. Torous warned that if providers take an approach of refusal and companies come in with products that may be good, may be really bad and dangerous, the industry won’t know how to evaluate them.

Given the absence of regulations, Torous said mental health practitioners have to be proactive about learning how to use AI tools and make sure those tools are effective, and safe. The strike in California highlighted these larger issues with the mental health system. The event was supported by engineers and 23,000 registered nurses, who share concerns about the increasing use of artificial intelligence. Coverage of the strike in California included Politico, KTVU-2, KRON-4, and the Sacramento Bee, among others.

The tension between administrative efficiency and clinical judgment remains central to the debate. While health systems look to automate processes, clinicians argue that initial screenings require human expertise to assess urgency and treatment needs accurately. The outcome of this labor dispute may influence how AI integration is negotiated in health care contracts moving forward. Practitioners emphasize that while technology can assist with documentation, the core of mental health care relies on human interaction and licensed clinical assessment.