A Tool in the Struggle to End Medical Copays

By PHN Editors
From PHN Issue 50, Summer/Fall 2022

Activists in Pennsylvania have started a coalition to end the $5 copay for medical care in state prisons. The coalition includes FAMM, the Pennsylvania Prison Society, the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), the Institutional Law Project, and Physicians for Criminal Justice Reform—and now Prison Health News has joined too. For those in prison in Pennsylvania, you can help! We need to show the DOC that the copays are truly a hardship for incarcerated people and their families. To do that, you can start using the grievance process when you are unable to afford a copay. The DOC tracks grievances, so seeing grievances over copays will help them understand how often people in prison can’t pay. If you’re not in Pennsylvania, you can do this too, but there is more power in numbers where there is a group of activists taking action together.

Steps to take if you are in Pennsylvania:

STEP 1: Know what medical services you should and should not be charged for under the current Prison Medical Services policy.

STEP 2: Review your medical services charges regularly on an ongoing basis.

STEP 3: If you are wrongly charged, file a grievance. Your grievance should identify the date on which you received care, note that the care or medication you received does not qualify for the copay, and ask for a refund to your account.

STEP 4: If you are correctly charged under the current policies but cannot afford the copay, or the copay is a financial hardship to you or your loved ones, consider filing a grievance. Your grievance should identify the date on which you received care, note that the copay was correctly charged under existing policies but that you cannot afford it and/or it is a hardship to you and your loved ones, and explain why. Ask for a refund to your account. Take Step 4 only if you decide it is safe for you to do so.

Things to remember in any state or the federal system:

  • Use the form provided by the facility.
  • Write clearly.
  • Each grievance can only discuss one problem.
  • Be aware of any deadlines and time limits.
  • Make sure you include how you would like to have the problem solved.
  • Be polite and stick to the facts.
  • You don’t have to put staff members’ names in the grievance, and it may be safer
    not to.
  • Keep copies of everything.

Your safety is important. Prison Health News cannot help you if you are retaliated against, unfortunately. So this is your decision to make for yourself.

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