Vt. to replace prison health provider
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By Brent Curtis Staff Writer - Published: October 30, 2009
The state is poised to replace its Department of Corrections health care provider.
A month after Corrections Commissioner Andrew Pallito said he had lost confidence in Prison Health Services, the Tennessee-based company that provided medical services at Vermont's jails for the past four years, Corrections officials said Thursday they have found another private contractor to take PHS's place.
The company, Correct Care Solutions, hasn't finished inking a deal with the state yet, but is projected to begin delivering both medical and mental health to Vermont inmates starting in February, according to Dr. Deloris Burroughs-Biron, health services director for DOC.
PHS officials told the state last month they wouldn't seek to renew a Corrections contract that expires at the end of the year.
To Pallito, the company's decision appeared more than coincidental since the announcement came in the wake of inmate Ashley Ellis' death from cardiac problems brought on by denial of potassium medication for an anorexic disorder.
"I suspect they now know that in all likelihood they would not win the bid again," Pallito said last month.
Like PHS, CCS hails from Tennessee and serves as a private medical contractor to correctional facilities nationwide.
But unlike PHS, CCS was founded by "experts in corrections, health claims processing and hospital networking," according to the company's Web site. That distinction among others gave Burroughs-Biron and Agency of Human Services Secretary Robert Hofmann confidence in the company's ability to meet the state's and the inmates' medical needs.
"I think at this point they're well-suited to the task," Burroughs-Biron said.
Asked if any additional safeguards or oversight measures were intended for the contract to prevent instances where inmates are denied medications or medical care, Burroughs-Biron said all state medical contracts include language requiring contractors to meet inmates' medical needs, but no new language was intended.
"There are never any guarantees as you know," Burroughs-Biron said. "We have done our very best at this point to make sure there is adherence."
Hofmann said DOC is "continuously striving to improve" on meeting inmates' medical needs but he said the state's hands-on control only goes so far.
"One of the facts of this tragic case as we've seen is that we are reliant on Vermont medical professionals to provide care," he said. "The state does not provide that service."
But Hofmann also said inmates need not worry about penny pinching by whatever for-profit company provided care. Under the terms of recent state contracts, private contractors are not required to foot the bill for cost overruns for doctors, procedures or medications required for inmate care that go above and beyond the annual stipulated amount.
brent.curtis@rutlandherald.com
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