Prison health provider to leave Vermont
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By BRENT CURTIS Rutland Herald Staff - Published: October 1, 2009
RUTLAND — The private contractor that provides medical services to Vermont's prisons is pulling out of the state and the Vermont Department of Corrections commissioner said he's looking forward to their departure.
Prison Health Services, the Tennessee-based company that has provided medical and mental health services to corrections for the last four years, announced earlier this month that it would not seek to renew its contract when it expires at the end of the year.
To Corrections Commissioner Andrew Pallito, the company's decision appeared more than coincidental since PHS announced its intentions soon after Vermont inmate Ashley Ellis died from cardiac problems that the Vermont Medical Examiner concluded Wednesday were complicated by the "denial of access to medication" while Ellis was in the state jail in Swanton.
"I suspect they now know that in all likelihood they would not win the bid again," Pallito said.
PHS hasn't been implicated of any wrongdoing in an ongoing police investigation. However, an independent investigation by the state Defender General's Office found that a nurse ordered to give Ellis potassium for an eating disorder failed to do so. Pallito also said the DOC staff was never involved in dispensing medications.
The company defended itself in an e-mail that said, "PHS is confident that, during the less than 48 hours that Ashley Ellis was in state custody, she received care that met applicable standards … We can state emphatically that PHS did not deny her access to medications."
Asked why the company wasn't seeking to renew its contract, a spokesman for PHS replied, "It is a business decision."
Pallito said the state had no problems with the health care provider during the previous four years.
However, earlier this year, Mitchell Miller, a former regional medical director for Prison Health Services, had his license suspended after 55 counts of unprofessional conduct were brought against him for allegedly providing large amounts of narcotic prescription drugs to his private practice patients between 2000 and 2009.
Pallito said he has reminded the company of its obligations to provide services through the remainder of its contract — and he said he's received assurances from PHS that those obligations will be met.
That said, Pallito said he hopes to quickly select a new health care provider from a field of six bidders and have the new provider in place before the end of the PHS contract.
The commissioner said his interest in quickly replacing PHS reflects a lack of faith in the continued quality of care at Vermont's corrections facilities.
"I'm concerned with any business that says we're not going to continue doing business with you, but we want to complete our contract," he said. "I'm concerned that there is no more incentive for them to really impress us."
Pallito wasn't the only state official not sorry to see PHS go.
Sen. Richard Sears, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the state needed to take steps to make sure no other inmates suffer Ellis' fate. One of those steps, he said, involved switching health care providers.
"If it means changing the way the state does business with its contractor, so be it. Part of the problem is that the lowest bidder doesn't always give you the best value," Sears said, adding that PHS was the low bidder the last time the state shopped for a provider. "We need to look at communications in the system again too. This young lady was sentenced to 30 days, not life."
brent.curtis
@rutlandherald.com
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