titantoo
05-10-2005, 10:47 PM
May 11, 2005
Medical Group for City Jails Is Investigated
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
State officials have opened an investigation into whether the corporation that provides health care for more than 100,000 inmates each year in New York City jails is violating state law governing medical services.
The State Department of Education, which regulates the practice of medicine, is examining the terms of the three-year, $300 million contract renewal the city signed in December with the corporation, Prison Health Services. The inquiry will determine whether the contract complies with a state requirement that for-profit corporations providing medical services be owned and controlled by doctors - a law intended to prevent business considerations, like maximizing profits, from influencing medical decisions.
Prison Health executives and the city officials who oversee its work say they believe that the contract is in compliance. But state education officials say the matter of who is in charge is a serious one, with grave repercussions for the well-being and survival of inmates, as well as the public health.
The investigation, in fact, marks a renewed effort by the Education Department, which first began to look into the Tennessee-based corporation in 2001, after several inmate deaths in upstate jails staffed by Prison Health began to draw stinging criticism from the State Commission of Correction, which monitors jail conditions.
The department's investigators concluded then that Prison Health was violating the state law, saying that company executives were ultimately responsible for medical decisions and profiting from medical services. The two agencies asked the state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, to halt the company's operations in New York, but Mr. Spitzer's office has declined to investigate.
Now, however, education officials have decided to look into the company's largest contract of scores across the country, providing medical and mental health care at nine city jails on Rikers Island and a 10th in Lower Manhattan.
State officials familiar with the new contract Prison Health signed with the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene have said in interviews that it appears to violate the state law because it makes the doctors who are actually doing the work at Rikers answerable to Prison Health executives in Tennessee for the care they provide. Prison Health hires all doctors at Rikers Island.
On April 20, Education Department investigators met with three state assemblymen, city health officials and Richard Rifkin, a deputy to Mr. Spitzer, to discuss Prison Health's legal status. The Assembly members at the session were Richard N. Gottfried, chairman of the Assembly's Health Committee; Jeffrion L. Aubry, chairman of the Correction Committee; and Ron Canestrari, chairman of the Higher Education Committee.
Mr. Gottfried said he called the meeting to answer questions raised by a recent series of articles in The New York Times examining Prison Health's record in New York. Among other things, the series detailed State Commission of Correction reports that faulted company policies and medical errors in the treatment of 24 inmates who had died in city or upstate jails.
Assemblyman Canestrari said Prison Health appeared to be in violation of the state law on for-profit medical services.
"My understanding is their structure doesn't comply with the law," he said in an interview last week. "There have been attempts to meet the legal standard, but they have fallen short."
But company officials insist doctors are in charge of medical decisions. In New York City, Prison Health says it provides only administrative services to a doctor-run corporation, P. H. S. Medical Services P. C., that directs all medical care at Rikers.
But that corporation is run by Dr. Trevor Parks, a regional medical director for Prison Health. State education investigators have called Dr. Parks's corporation a sham, and said that when they questioned him, he had only a vague idea of his role in it.
Several Prison Health employees at Rikers said in interviews that Dr. Parks recently gathered a group of supervising doctors there and informed them that they were employees of his corporation. Dr. Parks declined to comment yesterday.
City Health Department officials believe the Prison Health contract is legal, said Sandra Mullin, a department spokeswoman, in an e-mailed statement.
Trey Hartman, Prison Health's president, said in a statement yesterday: "The city of New York has said that our structure under the Rikers Island contract is appropriate and in compliance with all legal requirements, and we have received guidance confirming that by widely respected outside legal counsel."
Medical Group for City Jails Is Investigated
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
State officials have opened an investigation into whether the corporation that provides health care for more than 100,000 inmates each year in New York City jails is violating state law governing medical services.
The State Department of Education, which regulates the practice of medicine, is examining the terms of the three-year, $300 million contract renewal the city signed in December with the corporation, Prison Health Services. The inquiry will determine whether the contract complies with a state requirement that for-profit corporations providing medical services be owned and controlled by doctors - a law intended to prevent business considerations, like maximizing profits, from influencing medical decisions.
Prison Health executives and the city officials who oversee its work say they believe that the contract is in compliance. But state education officials say the matter of who is in charge is a serious one, with grave repercussions for the well-being and survival of inmates, as well as the public health.
The investigation, in fact, marks a renewed effort by the Education Department, which first began to look into the Tennessee-based corporation in 2001, after several inmate deaths in upstate jails staffed by Prison Health began to draw stinging criticism from the State Commission of Correction, which monitors jail conditions.
The department's investigators concluded then that Prison Health was violating the state law, saying that company executives were ultimately responsible for medical decisions and profiting from medical services. The two agencies asked the state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, to halt the company's operations in New York, but Mr. Spitzer's office has declined to investigate.
Now, however, education officials have decided to look into the company's largest contract of scores across the country, providing medical and mental health care at nine city jails on Rikers Island and a 10th in Lower Manhattan.
State officials familiar with the new contract Prison Health signed with the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene have said in interviews that it appears to violate the state law because it makes the doctors who are actually doing the work at Rikers answerable to Prison Health executives in Tennessee for the care they provide. Prison Health hires all doctors at Rikers Island.
On April 20, Education Department investigators met with three state assemblymen, city health officials and Richard Rifkin, a deputy to Mr. Spitzer, to discuss Prison Health's legal status. The Assembly members at the session were Richard N. Gottfried, chairman of the Assembly's Health Committee; Jeffrion L. Aubry, chairman of the Correction Committee; and Ron Canestrari, chairman of the Higher Education Committee.
Mr. Gottfried said he called the meeting to answer questions raised by a recent series of articles in The New York Times examining Prison Health's record in New York. Among other things, the series detailed State Commission of Correction reports that faulted company policies and medical errors in the treatment of 24 inmates who had died in city or upstate jails.
Assemblyman Canestrari said Prison Health appeared to be in violation of the state law on for-profit medical services.
"My understanding is their structure doesn't comply with the law," he said in an interview last week. "There have been attempts to meet the legal standard, but they have fallen short."
But company officials insist doctors are in charge of medical decisions. In New York City, Prison Health says it provides only administrative services to a doctor-run corporation, P. H. S. Medical Services P. C., that directs all medical care at Rikers.
But that corporation is run by Dr. Trevor Parks, a regional medical director for Prison Health. State education investigators have called Dr. Parks's corporation a sham, and said that when they questioned him, he had only a vague idea of his role in it.
Several Prison Health employees at Rikers said in interviews that Dr. Parks recently gathered a group of supervising doctors there and informed them that they were employees of his corporation. Dr. Parks declined to comment yesterday.
City Health Department officials believe the Prison Health contract is legal, said Sandra Mullin, a department spokeswoman, in an e-mailed statement.
Trey Hartman, Prison Health's president, said in a statement yesterday: "The city of New York has said that our structure under the Rikers Island contract is appropriate and in compliance with all legal requirements, and we have received guidance confirming that by widely respected outside legal counsel."