FORT MADISON – AFSCME representatives had a sit down with Iowa Dept. of Corrections officials last week, but didn’t come away with any additional information regarding an effort to privatize inmate health care at the state’s prison systems under the DOC.
Todd Copley, President of AFSCME 61, the union representing the state’s prison staff, said the meeting was more a Frequently Asked Questions session with the DOC administrators and attorneys.
“The individuals that were there obviously have questions that either, in my opinion, the Department of Corrections didn't want to answer, but did the best the governor would allow them to,” Copley said.
“(DOC Director Beth) Skinner wouldn’t answer or couldn’t answer most of the questions.
"I can’t say it was productive.”
Copley said Skinner was clearly disappointed that people were saying that the effort was a done deal and minds were made up at DOC on who was going to get the contract.
Efforts to get comments from the Department of Corrections staff through the media inquiry portal on the department’s website, went unreturned Tuesday and Wednesday.
The state has put out a request for proposals to privatize inmate health care to include mental health and dentistry in addition to regular medical care. The state currently has about 300 employees in the prison system’s offender health care program.
Copley said he asked Skinner what the value of an annual contract under the program would be but said she didn’t have an answer for that. He said he “absolutely” believes that the privatization effort will be implemented.
“(Skinner) kept pointing out that this is just exploratory. Well, nothing on any of the information that you sent out do you let the membership know, or the employees know, that this is just exploratory,” he said.
“There's supposedly a magic number out there and we don't know what that number is, whether its $55,000,000 or is it 80 million?”
He said Kim Reynolds talks about having $1.8 billion in surplus.
“Let's just be ridiculous and say this costs 40 million to update the software, it's a long ways away from the real estate of $1.8 billion, so we brought up, you know, the University of Iowa has a software system that they use and it's owned by the state. Why couldn't the departments just use that,” Copley said.
“Shockingly, no one has told us how much this is gonna save. I get it, it may save on the front end, but it’s the backside that’s gonna kill ya. It’s like when they messed with the Medicaid/Medicare system. They showed savings on the front end, but absolutely got railed on the back side,” he said.
“The same thing is going to happen here. They tried doing this back in the late 80s, early 90s and it failed miserably, and it's gonna fail miserably again.”
Copley said he’s actually getting letters from inmates across the state.
“These folks do research all the time. They’re like free employees and they’ve researched the hell out of this. They’ve seen that it doesn’t work and how bad of an idea it is.”
He also claimed that about 17 staffers left the DOC and some went to the state’s Department of Health and Human Services that is paying a $10,000 sign on bonus and a regular retention bonus.
“They are robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he said.
According to an FAQ sent to healthcare staff from the DOC earlier this week, the RFP is being released to explore medical services, care coordination, identify cost efficiencies, and meet ongoing healthcare demands to see if a provider will assume responsibility for delivering medical, dental, mental health, and pharmaceutical services; will be the employer for all DOC healthcare staff to ensure consistency and continuity; and maintain compliance with contractual and regulatory requirements.
The current health recording system has been in use for more than 20 years and has been difficult to navigate and find data in a timely manner. The new system will help healthcare staff access records more quickly and coordinate better care. Additionally, a newer system will assist with quality assurance and compliance.
The FAQ also addressed several challenges, including staffing shortages.
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