Faults Found with Centurion in Kansas Four Years Ago Are Still Not Fixed
by Michael Thompson
Kansas has a mechanism in place that allows it to fine the medical provider contracted to serve the Department of Corrections (DOC). From just January through September of 2025, Centurion, the DOC’s private medical contractor, was fined $1 million. In fact, the five months with the most fines have happened since November 2024.
The fines are indicative that, rather than improving, privatized prison medical care in Kansas is worsening. In 2022, Kansas News Service investigated DOC medical care. At the time, DOC made getting any real information a nearly impossible task for the journalists. Even prisoners were stymied when trying to access their own data. Incarcerated individuals were given access to a computer and just 15 minutes to locate their own relevant data. The only substantive metric available to the investigators was the level of monthly fines. And under that metric, it appeared things were improving as the number of fines placed against Centurion was diminishing.
From January 2021 to May 2022, Centurion was fined almost 5,000 times, resulting in $900,000 in fines. But a chart showed shrinking monthly infractions. The last four months of that period averaged around 150 fines per month. The lowest charted month was August 2021, with just 96 infractions in contrast to the nearly 900 infractions in each month of January and February of that year. It appeared that the first few months were just the result of Centurion settling into the job. In response to the journalists, the DOC said in 2022, “The employees and leadership of Centurion have demonstrated themselves to provide good customer service for both the department and our residents. They are responsive to feedback and have improved the quality of care provided for our residents.”
The statement is difficult to square with the current level of fines, as well as the experiences of the DOC’s residents. Terry Bowen is a 78-year-old prisoner in Kansas who was originally interviewed by NPR and the Kansas News Service. Bowen complained then of struggling with pain and being unable to acquire Tylenol in order to mute it. Among his many issues, a previous procedure had wires placed in his chest to hold his ribs together. Those wires broke, leaving the ends pointing toward his heart, which Bowden worried they would pierce. He had been dealing with the problem for over a year and the issue remains today. He described the unchanging level of medical care to The Beacon: “Really all is about the same as it was … I don’t know. I’m getting to the point where I’m just tired.”
Wanda Bertram is a spokesperson for the Prison Policy Initiative, which examines how prisons function on issues like these. Bertram points out that complaints about prison medical care come from every state. She believes that medical care should be provided but taken out of prison responsibilities. “They only have so much money to work with … Even if Kansas looked to change medical providers—it likely wouldn’t be radically changing the money it allocates to healthcare,” she told The Beacon.
That sentiment echoed what Marc Stern, assistant professor for health care systems at the University of Washington, had told the Kansas News Service. He pointed out that the biggest problem comes from an unwillingness to spend more on health care. But Medicaid and Medicare, as well as private employers, find their costs driven even higher as untreated patients end up on their coverage. It makes more sense to pay now because “they’re going to come back to the community, and if we can make them healthier before they do, it’s actually going to save us, as the taxpayer, money down the road.”
Sources: The Beacon, KCUR, Kansas News Service, NPR
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login