Prison medical czar will slash rates paid to outside hospitals

The man in charge of improving California’s prison medical care plans to slash the rate the state pays to treat inmates. The plan could save the state $50 million this year. But as KPCC’s Julie Small reports, it could also discourage hospitals from providing care that prison hospitals can’t.

Julie Small: California prisons aren’t able to treat inmates with chronic illnesses or inmates in need of special care, so they send them to hospitals for treatment. But Clark Kelso, the federal receiver in charge of prison medical care, says that’s grown too costly for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Clark Kelso: For quite a period of time, CDCR has paid rates that have basically subsidized various hospitals’ bottom line, and the state just can’t afford it anymore.

Small: California prisons have paid some hospitals four times the Medicare rate to treat inmates. But next month, new legislation lets Kelso cut that down to a little more than double the rate. Jan Emerson with the California Hospital Association says that won’t fully compensate providers who care for prisoners.

Jan Emerson: They usually have many complex, chronic illnesses, such as HIV or alcoholism or drug abuse, or are victims of violence within the prisons, which are not typical for Medicare patients.

Small: Jan Emerson says some hospitals may cancel contracts with the prisons over the rate cut. Relations between Corrections and outside medical facilities are already strained.

Before a federal judge appointed the receiver to run prison medical care, the state often didn’t pay its medical bills for months – or even years. With the receiver in charge, bills got paid, but Clark Kelso says the backlog of invoices has grown again due to state work furloughs.