Report: New Eleanor Slater Leader Won't Release Info To Lawmaker

PROVIDENCE, RI — Efforts by lawmakers to learn more about the financial situation at the embattled Eleanor Slater Hospital have hit another roadblock.

Senate Oversight Committee Chairman Louis DePalma wants to see certain legal documents that could shed light upon the state hospital's Medicaid billing woes. And earlier this month, the office of Rhode Island Health and Human Services Secretary Womazetta Jones told DePalma he could not have copies of those documents, WPRI-TV Target 12 reports.

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DePalma wrote to Jones asking for all work produced for the state by the private law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP. A lawyer for the EOHHS refused the request, citing attorney-client privilege, investigative reporter Eli Sherman learned.

Jones in 2019 hired the firm to look at legal issues related to Medicaid billing problems at the Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals — the agency that oversees Eleanor Slater Hospital with its campuses in Burrillville and Cranston. The law firm's findings have been kept under lock and key.

DiPalma said the committee needs all of the relevant facts and data to do its surveillance and oversight work. The Middletown Democrat said he has since filed an Access to Public Records Act request for the information, and that if it's still withheld, he'll appeal to the attorney general.

Back in 2019 the state stopped billing Medicaid for reimbursements at Eleanor Slater. Various compliance issues have been fixed, but the state has not resumed billing. It's estimated that the Medicaid billing SNAFU has cost taxpayers more than $100 million. The state is poised to recoup some of that money.

The arcane billing issues are just one piece of a complicated puzzle. R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha has launched an investigation into the hospital. Kathryn Power, BHDDH's former director, recently resigned, to be replaced by Jones. At an online public hearing, family members of long-term patients pleaded with officials to keep the state hospital open and to be more transparent.

Gov. Dan McKee last week said he would pause a controversial plan he inherited from former Gov. Gina Raimondo to downsize and restructure the hospital. Part of that plan involved building a $65 million long-term nursing facility at the Burrillville campus. The plan aimed to save $788 million over ten years and would require the discharge of dozens of patients, some who have lived at the hospital for decades. The plan would also shut down the Aldolf Meyer and Regan units at the Benton facility in Cranston and create an Institute for Mental Disease, or IMD, in its place.

Jones has been charged by McKee with conducting a new review of the situation. The Providence Journal and WPRI-TV have been following the complicated story for months.

State Sen. Jessica De la Cruz and Rep. David Place, whose districts include the Burrillville campus, have been sharply critical of hospital administrators, even charging that a "shadow closure" of Eleanor Slater Hospital was quietly underway. On Friday they welcomed the news that McKee would take a new look at Raimondo's plan.