CORRECTIONAL DENTAL ASSOCIATES

192 West State Street

Trenton, New Jersey 08608

609-599-2800

September 14, 2006

Mary Jane Cooper, Esquire

Inspector General

Post Office Box 208

Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0208

Re: Dental Services for the Department of Corrections

RFP Specifications, Bid Instructions, Selective Enforcement and Costs

Dear Ms. Cooper:

Please be advised that Correctional Dental Associates (CDA), as a subcontractor for Correctional Medical Services (CMS), was the only New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) dental service provider. Based on our nine year experience with the NJDOC Health Services Unit (HSU) contract oversight and having been aggressively held to the 95% performance requirement, we made a collective organizational decision to carefully construct our subcontracting proposal to maintain our established 98% level of efficient compliance with every RFP specification.

Please refer to the enclosed CMS Statewide Alternative 2 Price Schedule, which has a "must relieve" clearly in the field next to the dental staffing and the enclosed directions for Alternative Staffing Plans from Page 84 of the RFP, which states that bidders must insert the proposed staffing and the relief factor staffing. By definition, a must should mean must. CMS was allowed to circumvent and undercut this written RFP bidding guideline during the bid process.

As documented on a monthly basis from 1998 through 2004, CDA was scrutinized by the NJDOC Health Services Unit (HSU) on every possible performance specification related to dental services. By request, CDA submitted monthly reports which reflected the statewide compliance with every aspect of clinical care for every qualifying patient in the system. The NJDOC HSU insisted on consistent Transfer Screening. Even though there was no minimum staffing requirement, the HSU consistently complained about any minimal lapse in coverage. We were aggressively encouraged to voluntarily agree to Annual Recall and Prosthetic Performance Standards that were not in the original contract.

CDA refused to negotiate reduced pricing with CMS without written indemnification for a reduced specification proposal. In that case, we could have continued with an Aas is 2004 delivery. No reduced specification indemnification was produced or discussed. CMS successfully negotiated terms outside of the written RFP guidelines and excluded CDA from participation in its reduced specification bid. In our opinion, CMS was attempting to create a price differential against Prison Health Services (PHS), the only statewide competitor, by gutting the dental service.

Additionally, CMS planned to take over CDA's staff and profit and provide dental services directly to the State. This illegal, ill conceived and greedy plan was not in the State's best interest. CDA's 63 experienced long term staff had committed, as early as 1996, not to work directly for CMS in an illegal delivery. They all honored that commitment and the NJDOC inmate dental service has been deficient ever since.

Historically, CMS enjoyed a much wider degree of permitted non compliance. It is well documented that CMS continues to enjoy an inappropriate reduced degree of required contractual compliance without the specified penalties for poor performance being applied. It should be noted that this documented discriminatory double standard of contract management and the strict enforcement of every RFP interpretation challenged the fiscal viability of our newly formed small business and in fact could have put CDA out of business on several occasions.

This situation has been a learning experience for everyone involved. The absolute necessity of a directly contracted, cost effective, experienced, specialized and autonomous inmate dental service provider, as demonstrated in many other States, should now be clear. The necessity of consistent and equitable contract guidelines, specifications and enforcement for all providers, should now be clear. Hopefully, we can move forward and resolve these contracting improprieties and the current delivery deficiencies in an expedient and cost effective manner.

Sincerely,

Leslie A. Hayling, Jr., D.D.S.

President

Correctional Dental Associates