UMass Medical School awarded multimillion dollar contract to manage health care at federal correctional health facility in North Carolina

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has awarded the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) a contract to manage comprehensive medical services to approximately 4,900 inmates at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) located in Butner, North Carolina.

The agreement, valued at $24.7 million for the first year, represents the UMMS’s largest federal correctional health contract to date. The contract also has options for four additional years that could increase the overall award to more than $136 million through 2016.

UMMS’s Health and Criminal Justice Program, part of its Commonwealth Medicine division, will manage the contract. The medical school’s work at FMC Butner will begin later this month.

“We are extremely pleased to have the opportunity to share our health and management expertise at the Butner facility,” said Joyce A. Murphy, Executive Vice Chancellor for UMMS/Commonwealth Medicine. “This builds on our impressive correctional health experience at the state and federal levels, and will allow us to extend that work and specialized knowledge to the FMC Butner population. We can’t wait to get started.”

The contract calls for UMMS to coordinate both inpatient and outpatient physician and hospital services. The Medical School will manage care at the correctional facility and in community settings, through a partnership with Duke University Health System, which will provide most of the direct care services.

UMMS, a leader in correctional health, has also provided comprehensive health services for the past 12 years at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ medical facility located in Devens, Mass. In addition, the medical school has a long track record of providing care at 17 state-run prisons in Massachusetts, serving the health needs of approximately 11,500 inmates.

Experts:

  • Dyana Nickl