Nassau inmate medical care information conflicting, incomplete

It looks like Maurice Chalmers, director of Nassau’s independent Office of Legislative Budget Review, did the best he could with conflicting, — and because officials refused his request for meetings to clarify — incomplete information he received about the county jail.

Usually, when a lawmaker asks Chalmers’ office to examine a department, or a government-related issue, what comes back is a thorough analysis. Not this time, however.

Chalmers’ office did a report at the request of Legis. Laura Curran (D-Baldwin), ranking minority party member of the legislature’s Public Safety Committee — who was trying to get a handle on how the jail’s been doing since Armor Armor Correctional Health Services took over inmate medical care.

“There have been so many questions asked about Armor that I was just looking to see what the statistics were, what they’re doing, what they’re not doing,” she told Newsday’s Bridget Murphy. How are they doing?

Financial information provided by the county showed that contractual and overtime expenses declined every year since 2011, when Armor replaced NuHealth Corp. in providing inmate medical care.

From 2011 to 2015, Nassau saved about $14.5 million a year on jail medical and overtime expenses, as inmate numbers also saw a significant decrease. “Should the county decide to change vendors, it would be challenged to attain similar results,” Chalmers wrote.

But beyond finances, analyzing other data provided by the administration of County Executive Edward Mangano — and prepared, administration officials would say later, by Armor — proved more challenging.

And Chalmers, rather than getting information directly from the vendor, said he was asked by the Mangano administration to have the “flow of information” go only through the county attorney’s office.

One result: “As the report progresses, answers to some critical concerns were provided,” Chalmers wrote. “However, when analyzing data provided, a general theme of inconsistencies/inaccuracies emerges, which prompted follow ups and clarifications by the administration.”

But even that went only so far, even when it came to simple information.

How much, for example, has Nassau paid to settle any claims at the jail? The response Chalmers received “can’t be independently verified,” he wrote.

Number of grievances filed by inmates?

After finding discrepencies “from one sheet to the other” in two documents, Chalmers wrote that he’s requested “clarification and year-end numbers from the administration.”

Inmate health care services tracking? Reports compiled by Armor left an inmate’s 2014 death out of statistics it gave the county, Chalmers noted.

The state Commission of Correction has found that Armor has what it called a pattern of neglectful care. And that the firm provided inadequate treatment in the cases of four Nassau inmates who died in jail custody.

An Armor spokeswoman, Yeleny Suarez, defended the company last week, telling Newsday that it was not informed “of any differences” in its monthly health services report.

She added that Armor “would encourage any unbiased individual who does not have a self-serving agenda to review the county’s report to see the statistical and financial data provided and not conclude that the constitutionally mandated, taxpayer-funded health care has not greatly improved.”

Armor’s contract expires in 2017.

But Nassau is not waiting that long. It already is preparing a request for proposals to provide health care services to jail inmates.