Vermont picks new prison health provider

WATERBURY — State officials are in final talks with a new firm to provide health care to the more than 1,700 inmates — the same firm that backed out of its three-year contract with the Department of Corrections just two months ago, and still owes the state thousands of dollars in fines.

Prison Health Services (PHS) backed out of its contract in October, after four months of negotiations with state officials. The company was losing about $1 million every three months at the time it gave the state notice, due in large part to fines and high labor costs.

PHS had racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines due to poor performance under the contract, such as not providing health assessments to inmates in a timely fashion, or staffing each facility according to the contract.

The state then issued a request for proposals and three companies responded — Correctional Medical Service, Wexford, and PHS.

The state announced it was moving forward with PHS this week.

“Providing health care in prison is a challenging assignment to say the least,” wrote Rob Hofmann, the state’s corrections chief, in an e-mail to staff and later provided to the Guardian. “After working out the transition problems, PHS has done a very good job for us and beat out a very formidable bid from another firm. Assuming we can reach agreement on new contract language, we will continue the very positive working relationship we have developed with their fine staff.”

The state is negotiating the final terms of the deal, and Hofmann did not yet know the cost of the contract. That number should be finalized in January, before the contract begins. The state’s three-year contract with PHS was valued at roughly $24-$26 million.

But, he did say that he was not willing not let PHS off the hook for what it owes the state.

“I expect to collect most of the prior assessments unless PHS provides convincing rebuttal,” Hofmann told the Guardian.

PHS approached the state about six months ago in an attempt to negotiate down some of the penalties it was being levied by the state, and receive higher reimbursement for services mainly due to high labor costs.

In a report filed Oct. 31 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, PHS’ parent company — America Service Group, Inc. of Brentwood, TN — characterized the talks this way: “Throughout the last four months, the Company engaged in comprehensive, good faith discussions with this client in order to reach a mutually beneficial solution to this contract's financial underperformance.” America Service Group is one of the larger providers of prison health care in the U.S.

Under PHS, the state’s nine prisons recently were reaccredited by the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare.

The department's previous contractor — Correctional Medical Services — was criticized by legislators, inmate advocates and family members for not providing adequate medical treatment to inmates. In some cases, independent investigations found that a lack of medical and mental health care resulted in inmate deaths.

Vermonter’s documentary on short list for Oscar

JERICHO — The War Tapes, a documentary that follows members of the New Hampshire National Guard unit to Iraq, and produced by a Vermonter, has been placed on a short list by the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The field of 16 will be winnowed down to the final five by Jan. 23. The Oscars will be awarded on Feb. 25, said Chuck Lacy, the film’s producer. The film’s director was Deborah Scranton. She and Lacy met up during a graduate writing class at Dartmouth College.

The film was initially part of a group of 81 documentaries, Lacy said. The next round of voting will be done by documentary filmmakers, and Lacy is hopeful their film can make the final list based on its merits as a documentary film.

The War Tapes faces stiff competition, including several other Iraq War documentaries, as well as the popular An Inconvenient Truth, The Dixie Chicks: Shut up and Sing, An Unreasonable Man, Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?, Storm of Emotion, and Jesus Camp, among others.

The War Tapes is the first war movie of its kind in which soldiers are the ones shooting the footage and providing the running commentary.

Soldiers filled 225 80-minute tapes, or 300 hours of the more than 800 hours of raw footage that he and four others took during their yearlong deployment in Iraq as part of Charlie Company, 3rd of the 172nd Infantry Regiment, which includes some Vermonters.

The regiment lived through more than 1,200 combat operations and 250 direct enemy engagements, nearly one a day, during their year of “boots on the ground.”

The War Tapes is not considered a political film in the usual sense; rather, it allows soldiers to reveal their politics and opinions candidly, whether they support or oppose their mission. Politically, the film remains neutral as a whole; however, there is plenty of fodder for every viewpoint.

The film won Best International Documentary Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, and a similar award at the recent BRIT DOC festival in England.

For more information, visit www.thewartapes.com

Posted December 21, 2006

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