VitalCore Owes MDOC $6 Million for Missed Staffing Hours

VitalCore Health Strategies owes the Mississippi Department of Corrections $6 million in paybacks for failing to meet staffing requirements during the first three quarters of 2025. A new report from the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review, known as PEER, details the financial and operational shortfalls in the state's inmate healthcare system. The audit also identifies inconsistent record-keeping and gaps in annual physical examinations for prisoners.

VitalCore won the contract to provide healthcare to MDOC inmates in 2020 under emergency status. The PEER committee analyzed the medical records of 50 randomly selected inmates to assess performance. The data shows that medical personnel filled an average of only 75 percent of the hours required by the contract. Paybacks are triggered when specific staffing thresholds are missed, such as doctor hours falling below 90 percent of the requirement.

The report breaks down the fill rates by medical category, revealing extreme discrepancies. Lab services had the lowest utilization, with only 5 percent of contractual hours filled. Records and administration services followed closely at 3 percent. Optometry performed the best, with 77 percent of hours filled, while dentistry reached 42 percent. All other medical staff, including psychologists and nurse practitioners, were required to meet at least 85 percent of minimum staffing hours.

Record-keeping issues further complicated the audit. Of the 50 inmate files reviewed, data for nine prisoners showed fewer sick call requests in the final records than in the original spreadsheets. Conversely, four files indicated more sick calls than initially logged. Annual physicals were also largely missing. Of the 29 inmates in custody for at least a year, only two received a physical assessment during the review period. VitalCore attributed this to a 2021 MDOC policy that allowed assessments every one to four years, though the company has since moved to annual exams following new National Commission on Correctional Health Care rules adopted in January.

Despite the shortcomings, the audit noted some areas of compliance. VitalCore successfully maintained monthly logs for the 22 pregnant women on the MDOC rolls, 11 of whom gave birth during the period. The company also kept four mobile medical units in service and met intake screening timelines. Ninety-eight percent of the sampled inmates received a physical examination within 14 days of custody, and 92 percent received a mental health screening within 12 hours.

Viola Riggin, president of VitalCore, told a legislative committee last month that the company has recently exceeded minimum staffing requirements. However, the PEER report states that full contractual compliance was not achieved in the staffing and record-keeping areas. MDOC has collected $2.1 million in paybacks for the first quarter of 2025, but payments for the subsequent quarters remain outstanding as of the report's release.