ELYRIA — EMH Regional Medical Center is locked in a dispute with the private contractor that runs the North Coast Correctional Treatment Facility in Grafton over unpaid medical bills for inmates treated at the hospital.

A lawsuit filed earlier this year accuses Utah-based Management and Training Corp. of failing to pay $628,193.81 in medical bills it racked up for inmates between September 2006 and February 2009.

But Tim Reid, the company’s attorney, said Management and Training doesn’t actually owe the hospital the money. Instead, he said, a former subcontractor is responsible for the outstanding bills.

Management and Training has been paying its bills since severing ties with Arizona-based First Correctional Medical in May 2008, Reid said.

That company, he said, ran into financial problems and fell behind in paying the medical bills under a contract with the hospital.

But Management and Training didn’t realize how much money was owed until after the lawsuit was filed in May of this year, Reid said.

“We realized there was a problem, but we didn’t know the extent of the problem,” he said.

First Correctional and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction are not named as a party in the lawsuit, according to court records.

Julie Walburn, an ODRC spokeswoman, said the prison system paid Management and Training about $15.4 million in fiscal year 2009 to operate the North Coast prison, which mostly houses prisoners convicted of drunken driving and other substance abuse crimes.

“They’re responsible for providing medical care to inmates,” she said.

Management and Training also was paid nearly $25 million for operating Lake Erie Correctional in Conneaut in the last fiscal year, Walburn said.

After parting ways with First Correctional, Reid said the company hired its own medical staff to deal with inmate care at North Coast.

An attorney for the hospital declined to comment on the lawsuit and hospital officials familiar with the dispute could not be reached for comment.

Reid said he’s hopeful a resolution to the case can be reached.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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