Maryland extends contract with ‘uniquely terrible’ prison health provider

Maryland extended its contract with a troubled, for-profit prison medical care provider, though top officials expressed reservations about the deal.

Comptroller Brooke Lierman called the company, currently known as YesCare, a “uniquely terrible and irresponsible” company that has provided poor quality care and dodged responsibility in Maryland and across the country through bankruptcy protections.

“I know we all believe that the state of Maryland should only be doing business with vendors who provide the highest level of care and services, and don’t try to use corporate and legal loopholes to evade their responsibilities,” Lierman said as she voted against the contract extension. “I do not believe that YesCare is a contractor that aligns with our values and I do not believe that the contractor deserves a unanimous vote from the Board of Public Works.”

Despite Lierman’s protest vote, YesCare’s contract extension was approved Wednesday, with Gov. Wes Moore and Treasurer Dereck Davis voting in favor. The company will be paid $125 million for the next nine months.

During a tense meeting, Board of Public Works members heard about YesCare’s unpaid bills to local health care providers and an unusually long process by state corrections officials to solicit new contractors to provide care to an estimated 20,000 people in custody in state-run prisons and jails.

A lawyer for YesCare, meanwhile, defended the company and pointed the finger at a rival company that used to have the contract years ago, whose contract was also extended.

Under the terms approved on Wednesday, YesCare will be paid nearly $125 million to provide medical care in state-run prisons and jails through Dec. 31. That’s on top of more than $700 million that was already paid to the company over the last five years, since YesCare’s corporate predecessor was awarded the medical care contract in 2018.

YesCare has come under fire in Maryland and nationally for the quality of its care of incarcerated people and for its role in a controversial bankruptcy that critics say is an attempt to evade responsibility for medical malpractice and other problems.

YesCare is a spinoff of the company Corizon, which declared bankruptcy and split itself into two entities: YesCare retained the company’s lucrative prison medical contracts while another company, Tehum Care Services, was saddled with Corizon’s debts and liabilities, including multiple lawsuits for medical malpractice and neglect.

The company’s contract to provide medical care in Maryland was supposed to expire on Dec. 31, 2023, but the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services waited until very late in the year to solicit new bidders to provide medical and mental health services.

Using money left unspent on the old contract, the department extended the contracts for three months until March 31 to buy more time to award the new contract — a move that did not need Board of Public Works approval.

The state correctional services department has still not yet made a decision on the new contracts and sought a nine-month extension for YesCare, as well as mental health care provider Centurion Group. Centurion will be paid about $25 million.

Carolyn Scruggs, secretary of the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, explained the repeated extensions as necessary to make sure incarcerated people still have health care while the new contract process plays out. Scruggs said the department is “very close” to awarding the new contracts.

Previously, the state had two contractors: One for medical care across both state prisons and at a pre-trial jail complex in Baltimore, and another for mental health care.

Going forward, the state decided to combine medical care and mental health care under the same contract. One contract would be awarded for state prisons and another for the state-run pretrial jail complex in Baltimore. But the process for awarding the contracts has been slow, dragging past the Dec. 31 expiration of the prior contracts.

“It’s taking us a little longer but it’s because we want it right this time. We know there’s going to be a need for a smooth transition,” Scruggs said.

Davis, the state treasurer, said he understood the need to get the contract right better than get it “fast.”

“The reason why we’re here now ... it’s not because we believe YesCare has served the citizens well. This is about the department. It really isn’t about YesCare. The department is simply saying it needs more time to complete its procurement. But it’s not saying, ‘We want YesCare,’” Davis said.

John F. Dougherty, a lawyer from the Kramon & Graham firm in Baltimore representing YesCare, urged board members to approve the contract extension, because the current deal expires at the end of the month. The prison nurses and doctors need certainty to know they’ll have a job, he said.

“A nine-month extension allows Secretary Scruggs and her team ... to finish their evaluation of proposals that have already been submitted, make a selection and allow some time for a protest process,” Dougherty said, a reference to the likelihood that rival bidders may lodge challenges to whoever wins the new contract.

That happened last time around in 2018, Dougherty noted, and the company with the contract at the time, Wexford Health Sources, was given extensions before losing out to YesCare.

Dougherty blamed payment issues on a problem with a processing company and said YesCare is working on getting its vendors paid up.

Wexford’s lobbyist, Bruce Bereano, opposed the extension for YesCare.

“YesCare is a bad actor and they are embarrassing to the state of Maryland on many fronts,” Bereano said, urging the state to move forward on the new contract. He said it would be “crazy” if the state picks YesCare again.

Board members also got feedback from lawmakers raising concerns about YesCare’s conduct.

Sen. Mike McKay, a Republican with state prisons in his Western Maryland district, shared the plight of the Boonsboro Ambulance & Rescue Services, a volunteer company that takes incarcerated people by ambulance to the hospital at YesCare’s request.

At one point, YesCare owed the rescue company $135,000, McKay said, and still owes $10,000 that’s tied up in bankruptcy proceedings, he said.

“To a small fire company, $10,000 is a lot,” McKay said.

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which operates hospitals and doctors’ offices in the region, at one point was owed more than a million dollars, McKay said, and the provider is still owed money.

Those providers — and potentially others — should be paid what’s owed to them under the contract extension, McKay said. And he urged a shorter-term extension with more oversight from the state.

McKay left a Senate voting session to speak to the Board of Public Works, which he said underscored the importance of his concerns.

Other lawmakers, meanwhile, weighed in with letters.

Sen. Paul D. Corderman, also a Western Maryland Republican, wrote that the University of Maryland Medical System is also owed money. The state needs to ensure they’re all paid up, he wrote.

“To ignore this and just merely approve this extension is not fair to Marylanders and gives them no protection or assurance of being paid for services rendered,” Corderman wrote.

A spokesman for the University of Maryland Medical System confirmed that the system is owed about $3.5 million.

Two top Democratic delegates who lead a subcommittee that oversees prisons wrote that they have “grave concerns” with YesCare and how the contract has been handled by the state.

“The incarcerated population of Maryland deserves access to healthcare that is both competent and ethical — a standard YesCare has so far failed to meet,” wrote Del. Jazz Lewis and Del. Julian Ivey, Prince George’s Democrats.

Baltimore Banner reporter Ben Conarck contributed to this article.

This story has been updated to correct the names of Tehum Care Services, Wexford Health Sources and Boonsboro Ambulance & Rescue Services.

Pamela Wood

pamela.wood@thebaltimorebanner.com

Pamela Wood covers Maryland politics and government. She previously reported for The Baltimore Sun, The Capital and other Maryland newspapers. A graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, she lives in northern Anne Arundel County.

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