D r. Jan Watson has seen a lot in her career. She’s worked on trauma teams in emergency rooms, practiced internal and occupational medicine. For most of her career she was an OB-GYN.

“Yes, I used to deliver babies,” Watson said beaming with the joy of recalling the families she got to work with.

Birth, death and everything in between — after more than 30 years in health care, Watson thought she had seen it all. But then she took a job at an Arizona state prison.

“I had never seen anything like that in my life,” she said, her eyes taking on a distant gaze as she recalled her experiences. “I had inmates dropping left and right. It was kind of overwhelming and scary at first, but then, I just – became accustomed to it.”

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She says she thinks the problem comes from not having enough doctors. She would get emails from Corizon Health begging the providers to work overtime to deal with what they called “Operation Backlog.”

Corizon denies it was understaffed but “acknowledges backlogs occur from time to time due to provider absences, whether resulting from illness, injury, bereavement, or vacation. Seeking additional help from existing Corizon employees to eliminate such backlogs is both prudent and reasonable.”

However, emails provided by Watson show that the shortages of providers was significant. In his request for overtime workers, a Corizon employee notes that in October there were more than 800 outstanding requests for medical treatment.

Watson says getting medicine for inmates was a constant challenge. “There were several inmates who had cancer and so they were taking morphine,” Watson said. She says prescriptions were supposed to be filled by PharmaCorr, a correctional pharmacy provider owned by Corizon Health, but Watson says medications would often run out.

“So then I would have to write prescriptions and someone would have to go to Walgreens and get the morphine to tide them over until PharmaCorr could send us some more,” Watson said.

Corizon says from June 2017 through October 2017, “backup morphine prescriptions were only filled at Walgreens a total of nine times, which is a fairly limited amount for a five-month period.” Corizon did not respond to additional questions about the morphine prescriptions. The company said they believe Watson was not current in her prescription renewals. Corizon says this “contributed to the very problem about which she complained.”

As a provider at the clinic, Watson could refer inmates to a specialist. When she first started at the prison, she says most of her referrals were going through. But then she says in August 2017, after she accepted an extension to her contract, things changed.

“It was just, ‘No, no, no,’ all the time,” Watson said of the denials she would get from Corizon.

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“Eighteen appointments were canceled, and of those, 12 of them were cancelled by the specialty physicians’ offices themselves and not by Corizon or its providers,” Corizon said. Corizon did not respond to follow-up questions as to why the specialty providers allegedly cancelled the appointments.

Even if a referral was approved, Watson says that was still no guarantee the patient would receive care. She says Corizon would ask her to cancel referrals that were approved but had yet to be completed so the company could avoid fines.

Watson says the Utilization Management team at Corizon would suggest what were called alternate treatment plans, which she says often suggested the provider on site handle the request.

“I am the provider on site,” Watson said. “I’m the one who wrote for this!”

The Arizona Department of Corrections and Corizon health are being monitored by a federal judge as a part of the Parsons v. Ryan settlement agreement. But Corizon keeps its own numbers. Watson says a woman responsible for the monitoring was open with her disregard for the process.

“When we had this provider meeting — she even said at the meeting, ‘Well, let me tell you how to beat the monitor,’” Watson said.

Corizon says “if the term ‘beat the monitor’ was ever used, it would have been in reference to how Corizon can properly improve its scores and did not (and does not) reflect any effort to mislead monitors or the Court.”

She was losing confidence in the system. Watson said there was one case, however, that impacted her the most.

“A gentleman came in with chest pain,” Watson said of an inmate. “He was known to have heart disease.”

His symptoms, combined with an EKG, made Watson think he was having a heart attack, but she says couldn’t get approval to go to the hospital for hours.

After the referral was finally approved, Watson’s fears were confirmed. The inmate had suffered a heart attack.

Watsons says her medical director, Dr. Rodney Stewart, reviewed the inmate’s test results from the hospital and conveyed the treatment plan to her and the inmate.

“He told me that’s what had happened with the patient. He had had a heart attack. None of his arteries could be bypassed and so there was nothing that could be done,” Watson said of her conversation with Stewart.

“I was told if he ever came in with chest pain again to just let him die, keep him comfortable, because there was nothing we could do about it,” Watson said.

She says she couldn’t believe what she had heard. Corizon says Dr. Stewart “denies having made such a statement.” Watson stands by her memory of the statement, which she said was made in the presence of others, because it was so alarming.

“You know, this wasn’t like a do not resuscitate,” Watson said. “This was, if the man had chest pain — I’m not supposed to treat that? I’m just supposed to let it continue and let him die?”

Watson says she pulled the inmates medical record and looked at the notes from the hospital. She says what she saw conflicted with the Corizon medical director told her.

“It didn’t say none of the arteries could be bypassed,” Watson said. “It only said one couldn’t. One could. And another could benefit either from medical management and or a stint.”

Watson created a new plan. She prescribed the inmate nitroglycerine to take the next time he had chest pains. And she told him she wouldn’t let him die.

Shortly after she changed the inmate’s plan, Watson says she was called in to a meeting with Stewart and the area medical director.

“I was told I was not doing things ‘The Corizon way,’” Watson said. She says when asked what the “Corizon Way” was, she was given a list of don’ts.

“Don’t make so many referrals. Don’t order so many splints. And I had to be faster. Don’t talk so much to the inmates,” Watson said.
Corizon says there is no company policy entitled the Corizon Way, but confirms Dr. Stewart said it. “When Dr. Stewart used this term,” Corizon said, “he was referring to applicable patient care standards. He merely used this phrase as a term of art.”

At this point, Watson told her medical director she was going to have to have a talk.

“And he says – ‘Well, you and I?’ And I said, ‘No. I’m going to have to have a talk with myself, because every day you come up with something that prevents me from providing care.”

Watson put in her 30-day notice and left Eyman in early October 2017. During her five months at the prison, Jan sent multiple emails requesting more resources and asking why her patients were being denied care. She says she never filed a complaint within the company because she didn’t think it would do any good. She believes Corizon Health was too focused on their bottom line.