By C1 Staff
WASHINGTON — Like prison itself, correctional healthcare is a revolving door. Eric Larsen’s been working here five years — longer than a lot of his colleagues.
Larsen says he decided to take this job largely because he gets loan repayment help through a national health service program. Plus, he gets to continue to build on the state retirement he earned as a longtime Fish and Wildlife employee, according to OPB.
Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners like Larsen are among the hardest to recruit. Psychiatrists are the hardest. In some Washington lock-ups, healthcare job vacancy rates are 25 even 40 percent. Expensive, temporary contract workers often fill in the gaps.
And now, with Obamacare coming on line, he’s pretty sure it’s going to get even harder. Expanded insurance coverage will mean more jobs in the healthcare industry. The American Correctional Association has warned that the Affordable Care Act may “significantly strain” the primary care workforce available to prison systems.
“I believe they’re going to have a lot of trouble,” says Donna Strugar-Fritsch, a consultant in California who works with prison healthcare managers nationwide.
“And what I’ve been suggesting is that they take the time now to start looking at the efficiencies of their processes so as these shortages emerge they are able to do more with fewer people.”
As it is, Washington’s Department of Corrections has paid out more than $5 million in medical negligence claims since 2000 for everything from the loss of a testicle due to delayed treatment to a suicide that might have been prevented through better treatment and monitoring.
Individual claims are one thing. Class action lawsuits and federal intervention quite another. This fall, Idaho’s Department of Correction settled a decades-old healthcare lawsuit brought by inmates. And in 2005, California’s prison health system was put into federal receivership.
Kevin Bovenkamp is assistant secretary for health services at Washington’s Department of Corrections. He describes trying to keep up with the turnover as like trying to speed date while on a treadmill.
“You hire one and some days you lose two, maybe you hire two and you lose two,” says Bovenkamp. He’s all too aware of the troubles elsewhere.
“The goal is not to get in a situation where we’re struggling and somebody else is telling us how we should do our healthcare.”
Bovencamp says the Washington Department of Corrections is currently undertaking several efforts to improve healthcare efficiency so it can operate with fewer people. The agency is also looking to recruit doctors from overseas. And there’s talk of paying hiring and retention bonuses.