Posted on 07/27/2004 4:40:04 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - California prisons paid local hospitals as much as eight times more than Medicare would have paid for the same medical procedure, auditors said Tuesday, leading to an average 21 percent annual increase in health care costs the last five years. That's nearly three times higher than the national inflation rate for hospital services during the same period, despite no significant increase in the inmate population.
The report is the latest broadside at a prison system where spending and management has been out control, according to previous audits, state lawmakers and the Schwarzenegger administration, and independent spending analyses by The Associated Press. The Youth and Adult Correctional Agency said some costs will be controlled in the budget agreement announced late Monday.
An emergency room visit that cost one prison $950 six years ago cost $3,300 per visit by last year, the California state auditor found. New contracts negotiated by the prison system tripled the cost for some inpatient care, two prisons told auditors.
The Department of Corrections sometimes paid two to eight times as much as Medicare would have paid for the same inpatient care, auditors said. And the prison system's outpatient payments last year averaged 2.5 times what Medicare would have paid the same hospitals for the same services.
Besides spending more for the same services, they said the department is using outside hospitals more frequently, instead of prison infirmaries.
The number of outpatient visits has nearly doubled, driving up spending on treatment that used to be performed in prison clinics. Visits at California State Prison, Sacramento, commonly known as New Folsom, jumped from 147 six years ago to 630 last year, for instance, but officials there could not explain why.
That's because the department failed to collect crucial information, auditors found, making it difficult to determine the reasons behind the massive increases that boosted spending on outside services to $112.6 million last year.
Auditors recommended the department renegotiate its contracts and tie costs to Medicare rates.
The department should also analyze why it sends more inmates to area hospitals instead of treating them in prison, and reverse the trend, auditors said.
Another audit in April found the department violated its own cost-control policies by not competitively bidding most of its medical services contracts, which drove up costs.
Tuesday's audit follows a stream of criticism from lawmakers who found the nation's largest prison system virtually ignored budget limits, most recently overspending by $500 million as the state struggles with a record budget gap. An Associated Press analysis in January found the department overspent by nearly $1.6 billion since 1999, with much of it going for overtime and sick leave.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration has promised to do better.
The pending budget agreement promises to shave more than $26 million in medical costs savings, including by boosting the number of employees who will negotiate contracts with outside medical providers and review medical expenses.
The department also plans to use generic drugs where possible; perform liver biopsies for inmates with Hepatitis C in prison hospitals instead of sending them to outside doctors; and give inmates blood dialysis inside prisons instead of sending them to outside centers.
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On the Net:
California Department of Corrections: http://www.cdc.state.ca.us
Unbelievable,especially since about 25% of them are Mexicans.
Anyone else get the impression that Prisons AND Universities are turning into socialist conditioning camps?
Many of the inner city schools already are.
Good point. I didn't think about that.
Well if you were you a doctor who would you rather treat? A criminal or a medicare patient?
Send the bill to Mexico.
Arnold needs to show some action on this soon !
Liberal trial lawyers as usual are behind the increased costs. Any prisoner is now entitled to get the newest and most expensive treatment for his/her/it's medical condition. Often those medical conditions are terminal in months or a year inspite of the newest medical intervention.
Now if a lifer has terminal hiv/aids and needs heart by surgery or some other expensive surgical procedure, the prison system has to give it to them. So expensive cardiac procedures are done by neighboring hospitals. Apparently some states are paying for organ transplants for Hiv/Aids prisoners.
Security costs to monitor the criminals at a hospital drives the cost of the hospital up. They have to have private rooms that are monitored by the hospital security staff and the prison guards who come with the patient.
Any prisoner with aids demands and gets the newest and most expensive treatment fad. Often they get multiple therapies with each therapy costing tax payers several thousand $'s month just for the drugs. Then expensive monitoring and admin of the drugs are required.
Of course the prison guards love all of this expensive outpatient care, as it requires more expensive guards to be with the prisoners on each trip or to stay at the hospital for long procedures.
All of the above creates a cash cow for hospital administrators with budgets strained from mandatory treatment of illegals and others.
Please... health care costs have skyrocketed in corrections everywhere...
Do you have any sources for some of those statements you made?
Check with the various hospitals which contract with the near by prison.
I'm out of the loop now, but it was bad 8-10 years ago. It has gotten worse.
One of the biggest costs per prisoner is the cost of the various hiv/aids treatments. With prison populations often in double digit % re prisoners with active HIV/Aids. If they are not treated, here come the lawsuits.
If they don't get the by pass surgery, here come the law suits.
If they have hepatitis and don't get the expensive interferon and the various additives, here come the law suits.
Ask any hmo or ppo manager what a single hiv/aids patient costs them each year. What a single patient who under goes heart by pass surgery costs them for the operation and medicine afterwards. What a single Hepatitis patient costs re interferon therapy before they need a liver transplant.
Many of the prisoners are multiple hits on the system, like active hiv/aids and hepatitis, or active hiv/aids and cardiac problems with the potential cardiac surgery or various cardiac invasion procedures.
A
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