Correcting Corrections

We’re all acutely aware of how our own healthcare management effects our personal bottom line, so it comes as no surprise that healthcare management of individuals under the care of the state represents significant investment.

With the number of prison detainees on the rise in Vermont, Corrections healthcare costs for prisoners represents an important opportunity for review by the state auditor’s office.  

To that end, State Auditor Doug Hoffer has just concluded an examination of the Dept. of  Corrections healthcare costs under the contract it holds with Correct Care Solutions.  

Here is a link to the entire 41-page report; but, if you want to cut to the chase (ie. Opportunities for Cost Savings), turn to page twelve.

Some clear opportunities for savings exist in ensuring that when inmates are covered by programs such as Medicaid, healthcare costs are billed to those programs rather than to the State of Vermont,  a practice that has not been universally observed in the past; and in providing inmates, upon release into the community, with their prescribed medications drawn from the more economical Dept. of Corrections pharmacy rather than sending them to outside retailers at Corrections’ expense.

The objective is, of course, to provide quality care to the incarcerated population but not at a premium price.  As often proves to be the case, the ideal balance has been difficult to achieve.

Auditor Hoffer sees better monitoring as essential to protecting both interests.  Noting that monitoring of the contract has improved since 2012, Hoffer says

“Since it’s a cost-plus-management fee contract, the state bears the financial risk and the contractor lacks incentive to minimize costs.” The audit report stated that DOC’s “cost monitoring was not robust during the earlier years of the contract

and

“DOC’s failure to levy contractually allowed penalties for two years represented a lost opportunity for the State to offer a monetary incentive for CCS to correct its deficiencies in a timely manner.”

The report identifies “personnel and operational changes in the Department” as contributing to this failing; once more demonstrating how government cost-cutting efforts that target staff don’t always have the desired effect.

About Sue Prent

Artist/Writer/Activist living in St. Albans, Vermont with my husband since 1983. I was born in Chicago; moved to Montreal in 1969; lived there and in Berlin, W. Germany until we finally settled in St. Albans.

10 thoughts on “Correcting Corrections

  1. … that a contract signed and implemented under Jim Douglas suffered from lax controls and was written to put all the financial onus on the state.

    And here I thought Jim Douglas was the avatar of Good Government.

    Shocked, I tell ya.  

  2. from the Digger story:

    *all emphasis added

    From Feb. 1, 2010, through Jan. 31, 2013, the state paid CCS $53.3 million to provide health care services to roughly 1,500 inmates incarcerated at in-state facilities – $4.2 million over what the state had budgeted.

    http://vtdigger.org/2013/10/28

    From your source:

    $19 million for the coming budget year.

    http://www.burlingtonfreepress

    Ay yiyi!

    All states should audit agency budgets on a routine basis like this. Hiring an investgator (Stein) a very savvy move. Who knows where the trail(s) will lead.

    Watchful eyes will hopefully keep the honest honest & hold the line on wasteful spending.

    No wonder Douglas tried to to raise taxes on the backs of middle class & working poor Vermonters.  

  3. Cost-plus contracts??? Really? This has Lunderville stench all over it. Anyone else have these sweetheart deals? It is kind of sad that it took until 2012 to even think about reviewing this piece of crap. Jeb Spaulding? Are you there? Wake up. Why didn’t that Reardon guy stop this for you? Oh yeah. He’s from the Douglas camp. Have to be careful who you choose to lie with these days.  

  4. Wed 10/30/13 Noon & 7PM

    *Post your questions or comments for Doug Hoffer her or email them to vermontedition@vpr.net.

    Vermont Edition

    12:08 pm Tue October 29, 2013

    State Auditor Doug Hoffer

    By Jane Lindholm and Ric Cengeri

    Wed 10/30/13 Noon & 7PM  State Auditor Doug Hoffer has been in the position since January. His office has recently released several reports and made some personnel moves.

    Auditor Hoffer will discuss his office’s reports on health care provided at correctional facilities, state workers’ compensation and transportation construction contracts.

    http://digital.vpr.net/post/st

  5. hot-button issues circulating in the news, this is a chance to ask questions & get answers concerning these issues as well as understanding the import of changes made w/in the auditors office & how it fits within the context of these issues.  

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