By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer
SACRAMENTO, Calif.- California’s prison system has such lax spending practices on health care that a urologist was able to charge $2,036 an hour to treat inmates and an orthopedic surgeon billed the state for 30 hours of work for a single day, according to an audit released Wednesday.
The report by the state controller’s office said such wasteful spending had contributed to the soaring cost of prison health care, which rose from $153 million in 2001 to $821 million this year.
“Waste, abuse and management deficiencies are rampant” in contracted health care services, Controller Steve Westly said, explaining that the rising costs were too great for normal increases in health care services.
Westly said he will ask the state attorney general to consider criminal charges against the unnamed doctors, nurses and laboratories mentioned in the audit. He also will seek compensation.
A spokesman for the attorney general said the office would review the audit.
California’s prison health care system already operates under the authority of a receiver who was appointed by a federal court.
Westly ordered the audit in April after receiver Robert Sillen reported that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation was $58 million behind in paying for contracted medical services.
Some providers _ including the urologist and surgeon _ took advantage of the department’s poor negotiations for services and lax oversight of billing and payments, the audit said. For example, the corrections department paid the orthopedic surgeon nearly $1.5 million in one year.
Sillen said the audit reinforces his view that the state could save money by hiring more of its own doctors, pharmacists and nurses instead of contracting for services. He said he plans to order substantial salary increases for medical professionals so their wages will be competitive with those working for private companies.
Corrections spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said he could not comment on the audit’s specific allegations of over-billing. But he said prison health care reform is included in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget and in a $6 billion prison-building plan the governor is asking state lawmakers to approve when they return next week from their summer recess.
“The department has been working with the receiver to fix some of the problems that exist and have existed for decades,” Hidalgo said.
The controller’s audit is just the latest critical review of prison health care spending. The prison system’s inspector general and the Bureau of State Audits also have found overspending, mismanagement and abuse by outside contractors.
Westly said his audit shows the department has failed to improve.
In one case, the department overpaid a contractor nearly $500,000 over 10 months. The laboratory provided false test results for inmates suspected of having hepatitis C, but the department paid for retests and renewed the lab’s contract for another three years.
The health care system has been plagued by neglect and malpractice for years. The poor conditions led to a 2001 lawsuit filed on behalf of inmates, which in turn led to the appointment of the federal receiver.