District renews medical deal
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Jeff Benson
A Huntington Beach healthcare provider filed a lawsuit against Coast
Community College District last week for its alleged refusal to
accept all bids for Coastline College’s healthcare service. But that
didn’t dissuade the district’s board Wednesday from renewing its
existing contract.
The board, which also governs Orange Coast College, voted 5 to 0
Wednesday to extend its contract with Memorial Prompt Care Medical
Group Inc. for one year while it searches for better proposals from
other healthcare providers. Memorial Prompt Care has served the
college since 1998.
“The reason the college asked for that one-year extension was
because it could take us four or five months to get all
constituencies involved in the process,” district spokesperson Erin
Cohn said. “It may not take a whole year, but we don’t want to
require students to have to change healthcare providers in the middle
of the school year.”
Dr. David W. Cheshire’s lawyer, Dale Quinlan, said the contract
should be open to public bid under the public contract code and
contended that the district failed to comply for the second year in a
row.
“The contract was originated in 2003 as a five-year contract with
the district,” Quinlan said. “In 1998, there was another [request for
proposal] process, and another doctor got the contract. In 2003, the
contract came up again, but the district declined to open up the bid
process, and they extended the contract. Then they did it again
[Wednesday].”
Quinlan also said Cheshire’s Huntington Beach-based organization,
Family Care Medical Assn., was unfairly shut out from bidding on the
Coastline contract because the doctor who holds the contract, Jamie
Lewis, also serves on Coastline’s foundation board.
District trustee Jerry Patterson said the request process will
take about a month to iron out before bidding opens.
“He’s decided to sue us,” Cohn said. “The college will open up the
[request for proposal] process, and he will have that opportunity.”
Cohn said Coastline students, for the most part, have been happy
with the services they’ve received from Memorial Prompt Care. The
district is expected to commit to a five-year term with a healthcare
provider after it reviews bids this year, she said.
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