BREAKING STORY:

Newly-Exposed Medicaid Mismanagement in Indiana Shows Mike Pence and Eric Holcomb worked with other Republicans to Dismantle a Working System to Hire a Company Riddled with Complaints, Lawsuits, and Death of a 5-Year Old Child

By Rachael Himsel, edited by Hope Leeper

October 21, 2020

Mike Pence’s Healthcare Privatization Experiment Has Gone Terribly Wrong, Causing Deaths of Medicaid Patients Across the Country in several Republican-Governed States, including his home state of Indiana. But gutsy women like Erin Stennett refuse to stop fighting until…

In 2018, governor Eric Holcomb dismantled Indiana’s Medicaid transportation system and outsourced it to Southeastrans, a Georgia company that was already failing to meet the demands of its contracts in their own state. Southeastrans has been unable to fulfill many requests for Medicaid clients across Indiana, often cancelling the day before the appointment or simply not showing up. In 2019, the Indiana General Assembly created a bill to hold the company accountable for the huge volume of complaints about Southeastrans, but has not put out a new report in 1.5 years. Meanwhile, Hoosiers are still being left stranded at home, missing dialysis and chemo appointments, or left at their treatment center until past closing time, sometimes being driven home by nurses and other hospital / medical staff. Meet the Indiana activist who won’t give up on her Medicaid clients…. and won’t stop fighting until the system created by Pence & Co is dismantled and held accountable for what they have done to hurt Hoosiers, as well as countless Medicaid patients in other states including Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Washington, D.C.

By Rachael Himsel, editor

I met Erin Stennett because she is a nasty woman, and so am I. 

“Nasty woman,” as we know, is a sexist term thrown around freely by Donald Trump to describe any woman who dares disagree with him. This summer, in a moment of frustration with the regressive state of our union, one Massachusetts woman decided to start a “Nasty Women” group for every state of the union to show solidarity for the many, many women Trump has tried to bully over the years. She was surprised to find that the nastiest women were in… Indiana.

There were about 2000 people in the private Facebook group when I was invited by my niece. Within a day, the number doubled to 4000…then 8000...and within a couple weeks, the group outpaced any other Nasty Women group in the country - by far. With 50,000+ Hoosier women commiserating and making plans to get out the vote and create a blue wave in Indiana, Erin and I found ourselves surrounded by like-minded women who believe in putting people over politics, who were equally appalled at how fellow Hoosiers have been mistreated by current governor Holcomb and past governor Mike Pence.

A post by Erin caught my eye. She believed Holcomb, and all those involved with the deal to outsource Indiana’s Medicaid transportation system should be held accountable for her clients who had suffered greatly since the switch to Southeastrans. She wanted others to hold our government responsible for the deaths of people who have died as a result of missing treatments, and for her clients who chose to give up on their treatments because the disappointment created by dropped rides and missed appointments was too hard for them. “This is genocide by government.” I was shocked to hear such strong words, honestly. I had to learn more.

Erin tells me that the first sign of a problem was when a fellow case manager told her that one of her clients had gotten stranded in Louisville til 10pm. Growing pains, she thought. The system had a lot of new traffic, so Erin and her coworkers remained alert, but hopeful the kinks would get wrapped out quickly. Then, another Medicaid client of theirs from French Lick got stranded at his dialysis appointment in Jasper, about half an hour away from home. Someone on staff eventually took him home after Southeastrans failed to arrive for a pickup, even after multiple calls, Erin said. A third client of theirs also got stuck in Jasper, and a nurse drove him home after her shift ended. A few weeks later, the man passed away. 

After posting her frustrations on Facebook, Erin quickly found the problem was statewide. “I talked to the social services director at a nursing home in Leavenworth who said to me, ‘We have never successfully been able to get a ride for our patients,’ and I knew this was a problem that had to be addressed. She contacted the Southeastrans office, and the company’s program manager came to her office in Paoli: “They tried to tell us that the number of rides being missed by Hoosier Medicaid clients was not their problem. ‘It’s not our fault, we don’t have drivers, we don’t have staff,’ they said. Now, if your company had a $128 million contract - that’s $32 million a year - wouldn’t your main priority be to hire and train more drivers and fix this problem? In two years, that has not happened.”

Erin knows this attitude is not unique to Indiana, or Republicans, or any party: “There’s a web of people who don't believe in valuing seniors and those with disabilities, but I will always stand up for those who - for any reason - do not have the power or platform to speak for themselves.” 

FROM PENCE TO KEMP TO ADAMS: BETTING ON THE CRONIES

From his days spent as governor of Indiana, Mike Pence got to know Brian Kemp, Governor of Georgia. They are so close, Pence stopped in for a lunch to celebrate the great 2020 pandemic this summer. 

From Kemp, there’s a direct connection to the CEO of Southeast Trans, Steve Adams; according to the Southeast Trans site, “He was appointed by the Governor to serve on the Georgia World Congress Center Board of Governors and is also on their Finance and Personnel Committees.” 

According to Campaign Money, Adams has donated $17,800 in the past year to Republican campaigns. 

Every elected official in this country makes a promise to us that they will not allow personal relationships to dictate any use of tax dollars. They make a promise not to accept gifts, or use their political power to sway public opinion toward one company, or show favoritism due to personal ties. This “you-scratch-my-back” brand of cronyism almost always means the best company may not get the gig - rather, the person closest to the governor / vice president / president will get the gig. 

And that is not capitalism. 

That is not the American way. 

That is cronyism, plain and sample. And leaving overworked, underpaid social workers like Erin to deal with the heartache and stress caused by this disgusting experiment?That’s what cowards do when they cannot admit their mistakes.

After searching both the State of Indiana’s Medicaid site and the Southeast Trans site, we found that no administrative plans or town halls have been shared online since 2018. 

I reached out to Southeastrans for comment, but no reply was received within 72 hours. 

So I ask Erin, why would Holcomb sign the deal with a company like Southrans, whose rating on Glassdoor is two out of five stars, whose CEO has a 21% approval rating?  

It was supposed to save the state money.

“THEY DON’T WANT TO FIX THIS PROBLEM.”

Two more years remain on the contract between the State of Indiana and Southeastrans. “I know that if Holcomb is re-elected, this broken-down system will be in place for another two years, at least, and that means more people suffering,” Erin told me on our first phone call. 

“If you give someone two years to fix a problem, and they can’t seem to fix it? Then they don't want to fix this problem,” and then I hear her voice crack. She tells me she still cries, even though she’s told the story so many times now, hoping someone, anyone, would help save her clients from being ignored and treated like second-class citizens. “Imagine this was your mom or your dad, or your child, and they wanted to give up, they said it’s not worth the hassle created by dropped rides and poor communication. I’ve seen that happen, I’ve watched three of my clients die because of issues around their medical transportation since Southeastrans took over.”

I dug into it, and found that Erin has bi-partisan support in the Indiana legislature. Fifteen Democrats and Republicans in the Indiana House and Senate worked across party lines to ensure better oversight when it comes to Southeastrans and its providers. In Bill 480, the committee outlines what they plan to do, but the Indiana General Assembly has not reviewed a report or voted on the future of Southeastrans since March of 2019. 

As we face a global pandemic, shouldn’t our elected leaders be making public health and transportation at this time a priority? Shouldn’t we have had at least one vote in the last year and a half? 

When I asked her if it’s gotten better in the two years since Adams and his company took control of Medicaid transportation in Indiana, Erin quickly said, “No. It’s still a problem, it's not getting better. Even before the pandemic, I observed the service getting worse over time - not better.”

“Look, I'm on a first name basis with the governor's office, so I’ve been trying to work within this system,” said Stinnett. “The problem is, this system is so broken that it needs to be replaced. And I honestly do not have faith in Eric Holcomb to do that.” 

“When I saw that Southeastrans was not making the changes they needed to make to serve my clients, I tried everything I could think of to fight for them. I talked to Chris May, Eric Koch, and Steve May, but the problems persisted.” Erin spent what little free time she had contacting the media, talking to a class action attorney, and she even tried to reach Erin Brokovich. Because of her work, a few media outlets have covered this problem, but not recently. Whether it’s the pandemic or the election, people still don’t seem to care enough to listen to Erin, her clients, or the many Hoosiers affected by this mismanagement. 

I asked Erin how we could fix the problem: “We know the solution. We just need Southeastrans to go away. The system was not broken before, it worked better before than it has in the past two years. There was nothing to ‘fix’.” 

NOT ALONE: MEET THERESA PATE FROM PAOLI

Paoli resident Theresa Pate shares an experience that illustrates her frustration with Southeast Transport. Her husband Robert, a stroke victim and Medicaid Waiver/Medicare client, required transportation from home to a medical appointment in Indianapolis in October 2019. Previously the Pates depended on Orange County Transit from Paoli, but after Southeast Transit received the state contract the Pates were required to use their services. 

In an email to Southeast Transit that she shared with Women with Guts, Pate states that though the transportation had been scheduled since September, Southeast Transit did not arrive at the scheduled pickup location and the company contacted her to cancel only shortly before the expected arrival time. The next time Pate scheduled transportation for Robert, again there was a no-show and a series of phone calls and voicemails between Southeast Transport, Pate, a Home Health Aide, and the Older Americans organization, who were reportedly serving as a sub-contractor for Southeast Transport. 

And yet again Robert was not able to attend a medical appointment. 

Pate was very frustrated, saying Southeast Transport "flat-out lied about the situation," and threatened to make a complaint to the state. 

After Pate's complaint, Southeast Transport tried for a third time to schedule transportation to an appointment for her husband and… no one came.

Pate now refuses to schedule with Southeast Transport. She states, "I ... believe the state needs to cancel the contract with Southeast transport and find a service provider who cares for the elderly and disabled in a respectful manner and provide[s] the services that they are being paid to provide." 

“WE ARE INCREDIBLY SORRY.”

In December 2019, CBS4 Problem Solvers interviewed Indiana’s FSSA Secretary Dr. Jennifer Walthall, who told the news station that “the state had not anticipated how fast the service would grow and was working diligently with Southeastrans to fix it: ‘We are incredibly sorry. ... That has never been the intention, to not meet members needs every day, every time.’”

State Representative Karlee Macer (D-Indianapolis) was one of the first Indiana legislators to speak publicly on behalf of Indiana’s Medicaid clients.​​ In a segment with WTHR 13 in 2019 - more than a year after Southeastrans had taken control of Indiana’s Medicaid transport system, Karlee said: "I believe it is up to the Governor of the State of Indiana to really show leadership and cancel this contract.” She had the audacity of asking Southeastrans to provide data so she and other legislators could investigate what was really going on. 

The reply from Jim Gavin, communications director at the FSSA was: "We are unable to provide data for the complete time frame." ​​

Since then, the numbers that have been released paint a clear picture of mismanagement, according to WTHR:

For the first time numbers obtained by 13 Investigates reveal just how bad the problem is.​ Over the three-month period, 24,000 people asked for rides but were never assigned a driver. On average that's roughly 8,000 people a month who did not get service. ​​Just as troubling, there were nearly 2,000 "no shows." WTHR included the number of drivers assigned for pickups who missed trips and those who arrived too late for patients to make their scheduled appointments.

Vaneta Becker, a Republican from Evansville who co-authored Bill 480, told CBS4: "They should’ve done a pilot program first, that way you could see what the problems were, where the issues were, and where you needed to make changes.”

Signing a $128 million contract with a company that didn’t do a pilot program, who is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau doesn’t seem “fiscally responsible,” to borrow the Republicans rallying cry. 

And here’s the thing, Hoosier gutsies - we are not alone. Southeastrans has received complaints in their own state of Georgia. 

And in June 2017, a five year-old child died in a van driven by a Southeastrans provider in Arkansas, whose Republican governor had also outsourced their Medicaid transportation system to Southeastrans as well. 

It’s time to use our vote to make changes in this system, and it’s time to hold Mike Pence accountable for trying to create a healthcare monopoly by partnering a company that consistently fails too many of their clients. It’s time to expose the negligence on the part of governor Holcomb and others who gave the Medicaid transportation project to the lowest bidder and hope for the best. This is not how one governs. This is how one gambles.

And Hoosiers are united on one very important truth: our lives should not be gambled with.

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If you or someone you know has been negatively affected by the service of Southeastrans - in any state - please email us at info AT womenwithguts DOT com. 

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