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The Reporter

Wolk helped NorthBay recoup funds
Reporter Editor:
 

Monday, November 08, 2004 - 

On behalf of NorthBay Healthcare, I would like to express our deep appreciation to Assemblywoman Lois Wolk and her staff for their tireless efforts to resolve our lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections. In September, we received two checks totaling almost $11 million dollars, and much of the credit for that settlement belongs to her.

As a nonprofit organization, any profit we make is put right back into our hospitals to improve health-care services to our community. This is the money we use for new equipment, new services and future expansion. The funds from this settlement will add eight new beds to the critical care unit at NorthBay Medical Center in Fairfield. Also, next spring these funds will help expand our emergency department at VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville.

It's taken NorthBay and our lawyers four long years of litigation to receive payment for the emergency care we've provided to state prison inmates housed in Vacaville. Since 1998, when our contract to care for prison inmates expired, the CDC has asked us to care for their sickest patients, while refusing to pay the bill.

When we began our lawsuit, the CDC owed us $2.5 million. Our case languished for two years before it was transferred to Sacramento Superior Court in 2002. But it wasn't until Assemblywoman Wolk took office and began working on our behalf that we began to feel that a solution was in sight. Through the many strategy meetings she hosted, and the Assembly Bill 2475 she introduced this spring, the CDC was given notice that NorthBay wanted to be heard.

AB 2475 required the CDC to promptly pay the undisputed portion of an emergency service bill, regardless of whether a contract existed. But in reality, it did far more. It served to publicize NorthBay's case to the powerful Public Safety Subcommittee, which also oversees the Department of Corrections.

By June, the CDC owed us more than $17 million, and a "full-court press" was needed. NorthBay, Wolk's staff, our lawyers and our lobbyists met with the California Healthcare Association, various legislators, legislative analysts, senate consultants and the state Department of Finance. Feeling the pressure, the CDC sweetened its deal and offered $10.8 million in July and offered NorthBay a new contract for future services. On July 23, the settlement was final.

We thank Assemblywoman Wolk for her leadership, hard work and dedication to seeing this injustice brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

Art DeNio, Chief Financial Officer, NorthBay Healthcare