Wellpath healthcare provider at Santa Rita Jail under fire

DUBLIN, Calif. - Wellpath, the private healthcare provider for Santa Rita Jail and most jails in California, came under fire for its medical treatment of incarcerated people, and it turns out that the sheriff has sent three letters of "corrective action" to the company to fix its substandard care since 2024, KTVU has learned. 

In addition, a public records request reveals that Wellpath had to pay Alameda County $2.1 million in 2024 for falling short of its contract in terms of providing adequate staffing to the jail. 

KTVU specifically asked for a count of those corrective action letters following a Friday joint meeting of Alameda County health and public protection committees, where more than two dozen community members asked three supervisors to cut ties with Wellpath when its contract ends.

The sheriff's office sent its most recent corrective action letter on April 21 and Wellpath's response was due on Wednesday. 

"Wellpath has not done a good job," Darryl Ray of Castro Valley and a member of Starr King Unitarian Universalist Church of Hayward said at the meeting. "And I believe that it is time to bring healthcare at the jail under direct county control. Most of the surrounding counties provide their own healthcare in their jails. And we should do that as well. I think it would be more cost-effective, more transparent and better for those housed at Santa Rita." 

No action taken 

The supervisors took no action but said they should meet again in September for an update. 

That lack of movement is upsetting to Micky Duxbury, a facilitator with the newly formed Stop Deaths and Harm Group, an offshoot of the Interfaith Coalition for Justice in Our Jails, who pushed the supervisors to hold the meeting and look more closely at the medical care being provided at Santa Rita Jail, where 72 people have died in custody since 2014 – many of them for medical reasons. 

"We want them to move faster," Duxbury said. "We are frustrated with the process." 

Alameda County’s five-year, $250-million contract with Wellpath expires in 2027.

Kimberly Gasaway, Alameda County’s purchasing agent, said it would take at least 14 months to award a new contract, and it would behoove the supervisors to act now. 

"That would allow time for flexibility related to decision-making," Gasaway said at the meeting. 

Many of the complaints from community members about Wellpath were re-iterated at the three-hour subcommittee session. 

But what was new was the specific information revealed by Forvis Mazars, an outside firm that documented how Wellpath is not meeting the national standard of care, and hearing from Wellpath's president of operations, who disputed some of the analysis.

Substandard care

Faith Saporsantos, a nurse practitioner and a researcher with Forvis Mazars, said her auditing firm began tracking Wellpath's performance at Santa Rita Jail in 2022.

And while there was some initial progress, at least in the areas of chronic care and patient monitoring, Saporsantos said, "the momentum didn't last." 

She cited key issues in intake delays, tracking grievances and gaps in emergency documentation. 

In 2023, Saporsantos said Wellpath submitted only one formal improvement plan, "which did raise concerns about how seriously they were addressing our findings and whether real findings were happening." 

Since Wellpath didn't seem to be voluntarily working on improving, Saporsantos said the county moved to "corrective actions to raise accountability and drive real change." 

The national standard in hospitals for care and service is between 90% and 95% compliance.

Wellpath has not reached that level in any of the key areas in 2025, such as tracking serious health problems, where it got 12%; providing general patient care, where it got 42%; providing chronic care like diabetes and high blood pressure, where it got 83%; or medical-legal, where it got 6%. 

"Performance goes up and down and not all changes stick," Saporsantos said. "The quality assurance data showed preventable issues are still happening. And while some key studies showed early signs of improvement, those changes didn't always show up in daily patient care." 

To reach these markers, Saporsantos said that consultants review 15 of the most complex patient charts as a way to get a sense of how care is being delivered to the larger population. Then they review 30 or more randomly selected patient charts, for a total of about 45 charts each month. 

If the same problem keeps showing up, the sheriff's office issues a formal "corrective action" requiring Wellpath to submit a clear plan to fix the issue. 

"Again, these aren't just boxes to check," Saporsantos said. "We're looking for real-world improvements like quicker responses to patients, better communication between staff and complete documentation showing how care was delivered." 

As the data shows, Saporsantos said, Wellpath has not "consistently hit that 90- to 95% industry benchmark we're waiting for." 

Wellpath responds

Cole Casey, senior vice president of operations of Wellpath, who took the job in January 2024, spoke at the meeting, presenting his company's point of view for the first time.

He opened by saying that Wellpath's work is "incredibly important" and he said that the company is the only correctional healthcare provider that is accredited for a public health program in a correctional setting.

And while he said he welcomes "honest conversations about areas for improvement," he did critique the Forvis Mazars data and methodology. 

He also pointed out that Santa Rita Jail restricts Wellpath staff from seeing patients from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekends, and that Wellpath's compliance rates drop to 44% during those restricted hours. 

"We don't believe that the Mazars' report is a true representation of the care being delivered by Wellpath staff and union members," he said. 

Casey also said that in the last 12 months, Wellpath medical providers have served patients with more than "22,000 problem-based primary care visits" and over 3,100 primary-care chronic visits.

"Patients are receiving high-quality care," he said. 

Dr. Assad Traina, Santa Rita Jail's medical director, also spoke at the meeting, saying that he felt proud of his work.

And he said that only looking at the 15 most complex patients in jail is not going to be representative of the entire population. 

"I just don't feel like a lot of the things that are being said just don't quite match up with the reality of what I see every day when I see patients," he said. 

Pushing for county contract 

The meeting was spearheaded by jail reform advocates from groups including Stop Deaths and Harm, the American Friends Service Committee, Families Advocating for the Seriously Mentally Ill, Urban Strategies and the Interfaith Coalition for Justice in Jails.

The groups are calling for Alameda County to switch from using Wellpath at Santa Rita Jail to another healthcare provider; the first choice being Alameda Health System, the county's healthcare provider. They prompted a similar meeting in March. 

Jails in Contra Costa, San Francisco, Santa Clara and Marin counties do not contract with private companies – they use their own public healthcare systems. 

No one, however, has conducted a deep analysis of these county systems to see if they work better than Wellpath and are more cost-efficient. 

In a statement ahead of the hearing, Supervisor Elisa Marquez said she was committed to holding the county and its "partners to the highest standards" and making the changes necessary to "address gaps in care, staffing and coordination."

Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez agreed, adding that her office is committed to "accountable and transparent oversight" of its contracts.

Both the supervisor and the sheriff noted that their independent consultant noted some progress, but also challenges, in care management and emergency response, at Santa Rita Jail. Bot also promised to "act on these findings" by enhancing oversight, and they acknowledged that "sustained corrective action and performance monitoring" are essential.

‘Complexities’ with providing healthcare in jail 

Neither Marquez nor Sanchez, however, said specifically that they would necessarily end Wellpath's contract. 

At the meeting, Lt. Joseph Atienza noted some of the complexities of simply getting rid of Wellpath.

"Historically, there have not been many companies that can handle this size or the complexity of the facility," he told the supervisors, noting that Santa Rita Jail is one of the larger jails in the country, which brings issues for medical providers. 

He added that the current electronic health record system is old and some of the categories are sure to improve with a new system that is set to be put into place at some point.

"We don't want to disrupt the continuity of care to our incarcerated population," he said. "And all the improvements and progress that we have made with Wellpath in the corrective action plan, we don't want to regress with somebody else." 

Santa Rita Jail has long struggled with its healthcare providers.

For nearly 30 years, the sheriff's office used a company called Corizon, which also had a host of problems and deaths that KTVU documented in a year-long investigation. 

And in 2018, Alameda County awarded a $135-million contract to a competitor, California Forensic Medical Group, or CFMG, based in Monterey, which also had a history of lawsuits for allegedly poor medical care.

Through a merger, Wellpath now encompasses the former CFMG and another company called Correct Care Solutions. 

It provides healthcare services in approximately 420 facilities across 39 states, including in 34 of 58 California county jails, and it is owned by private equity firm H.I.G. Capital and headquartered in Nashville, Tenn. 

Last year, Wellpath filed for bankruptcy in Texas with $644 million in debt. 

The company was facing over 1,500 lawsuits alleging that Wellpath provided deficient medical care in jails and prisons.

Activists pushing for change 

A group of interfaith activists have been especially inspired by one particular lawsuit filed by Adante Pointer and Ty Clarke, attorneys who are representing the family of Maurice Monk, who died in November 2021 at Santa Rita Jail and who won a $7 million settlement from Alameda County. 

Monk's family also sued Wellpath, and that part of the case has not been officially settled. 

KTVU obtained exclusive bodycamera video from inside Santa Rita Jail showing that deputies and Wellpath staff did not perform meaningful checks on Monk in his bunk, and were seen throwing in food and medicine through the slat in his door.

He had been languishing in his room for about three days, not eating or getting up, until he was discovered dead.

As a result of Monk's death, nine sheriff's deputies, a behavioral health clinician and a Wellpath nurse have been criminally charged in Monk's death.

All 11 defendants have pleaded not guilty. 

His death was mentioned several times by community members as a reason to sever ties with Wellpath. 

"I think if you look at the death of Maurice Monk, his family has testified that they called for days and days saying he was ill, he needs his medication, and they never got it to him," said civil rights attorney Yolanda Huang, who has sued the sheriff's office many times. "And, Wellpath is the only entity in that jail that is responsible for getting medication to inmates. They have not been willing to listen and accept responsibility for their actions." 

Santa Rita JailNews