October 14, 2009

Delaware Department of Correction Announces New Bid for Prison Medical Contract

The Delaware Department of Correction (DOC) announced today it will soon release a Request For Proposals (RFP) soliciting vendors to provide medical care to the prison inmate population. The current contract with Correctional Medical Services (CMS) expires June 30, 2010.

In the past, the medical contract RFP has required a single company to provide all medical care in the state’s prisons, limiting likely bidders to a few large companies, including CMS. The new RFP will allow the option of multiple vendors, so potential vendors will be able to bid to provide a portion of services, such as mental health services, substance abuse services or prescription drugs, as well as to bid on the entire contract. The Department hopes and expects this flexibility, and the increased competition it is expected to provide, will foster improved medical care and cost savings.

Another change will be to allow the option for a “shared risk” model, with DOC agreeing to bear the risk of certain costs in certain categories. The current risk model – with all inmate care being provided for a fixed price – provides the potential for contractors to limit inmate care in order to maximize profits.

DOC has spent considerable time consulting with sources from around the country to design the new contract structure. “The Department of Correction has used the last few months to prepare for and make an informed decision about this RFP,” Commissioner of Correction Carl Danberg said. “We have reviewed the best practices from other states and interviewed medical experts from around the country in an effort to develop a better contracting model for prison health services. In addition, the Department has interviewed correctional healthcare professionals to identify and eliminate the impediments to competition which existed in previous contracts.”

The current contract was first awarded to CMS in 2005 when the previous vendor withdrew from the state with little notice. Commissioner Danberg said CMS’s performance since assuming the contract has been deficient in areas. However, DOC has been working for the last three years to satisfy the terms of a memorandum of agreement with the United States Department of Justice, and changing medical vendors in the midst of those improvement efforts would have been disruptive and may have made compliance less likely.

“Now that the memorandum of agreement with the federal government is nearing its conclusion at the end of this year, it is the right time for DOC to seek a better contracting model that we hope will improve medical care in the future while controlling costs,” Danberg said.

A September 29 report by the independent monitor assigned by the federal government to oversee Delaware’s prison medical care found DOC in substantial or partial compliance with 211 of 217 monitored items and wrote that, while there is some progress still to be made, “the State has continued to make improvements.”

The details and format of the RFP are being finalized and it will be released in the next few weeks. It will be available on the Department’s web site, which can be found at http://www.doc.delaware.gov.