By Ta’Leah Van Sistine, community reporter/editor
Despite a mid-December vote that put the University of Wisconsin-Stout’s Student Association (SSA) on record “Supporting Transgender Healthcare,” the next steps in this situation remain unclear.
SSA senators voted 22-0 in support of legislation favoring a decrease in the time that transgender health care and gender affirming care won’t be available for new patients at UW-Stout’s Student Health Services (SHS). That lapse seems likely to start on Monday (Jan. 3), when a contract begins with Prevea Health to replace SHS as the health care provider on the UW-Stout campus.
Multiple attempts to contact SSA President Devin Dumke about the SSA’s next steps have not brought a response as of Friday afternoon (Dec. 31).
Cost figures
The university’s budget for the fiscal year that ends on June 30 contains a total of $898,268 to operate the Student Health Services. The contract with Prevea calls for UW-Stout to pay the health care provider an estimated base fee of $698,140, a figure that will undoubtedly vary because it was calculated on the basis of $134 per current student FTE.
That information was provided by Kristi Krimpelbein, chief of staff for UW-Stout’s chancellor’s office, in response to a freedom of information request filed by the CVPost under Wisconsin’s open records law.
The $698,140 base fee will cover Prevea’s operation of the on-campus clinic and opening its western Wisconsin clinics to UW-Stout students. There will be additional costs to the university – as yet unknown – for advanced medical care that can’t be provided at the clinic locations. Students will probably pay for some of those costs, as well as being charged for their medications.
UW-Stout officials have repeatedly stressed that – under the new contract – there will be no increase in the segregated student fee that is charged to cover health care costs.
Background for SSA action
Adoption of SSA’s “Supporting Transgender Healthcare” legislation followed an open forum event on Nov. 15 that discussed the upcoming replacement of UW-Stout’s current SHS with a Prevea Health student clinic.
At the open forum, it was confirmed there will possibly be up to a nine-month period when transgender health care services for new patients at SHS will not be offered, starting when the UW-Stout and Prevea partnership begins on Monday. Prevea staff members will use that time to learn and prepare for how to initiate hormone replacement therapy (HRT) safely.
Prevea representatives said during the forum that students already receiving HRT from SHS will continue receiving treatments throughout the transition to Prevea, as reported previously by the Chippewa Valley Post.
Dumke said in an earlier email to the CVPost that SSA has had opportunities to communicate with the UW-Stout administration, regarding students’ concerns about this upcoming partnership between Prevea and UW-Stout.
“I am optimistic about the future,” Dumke said in that email.
The current legislation, which Dumke sent to the CVPost, also states that SSA supports the possibility of Prevea working with a current SHS staff member, “making information about alternative providers available or pursuing a contract addendum which would allow the current model of transgender health care to continue through the Prevea transition until they are ready.”
Prevea’s response to student concerns
The CVPost contacted Angela Deja, Prevea’s public relations manager, on Dec. 1, requesting to speak with the two Prevea representatives who spoke at the Nov. 15 UW-Stout open forum.
These individuals were Kristin Rubenzer, the supervisor of Prevea’s primary care clinics that serve companies, municipalities and universities in Wisconsin’s western region, and Ken Johnson, chief medical officer and vice president of operations for Prevea’s western Wisconsin region.
In response to the CVPost’s request, Deja shared a statement from Prevea that was also sent to UW-Stout students the same day, Dec. 1.
“Currently, the contract indicates that January 1, 2023, is the date by which Prevea Health would be able to serve new students as clients in the transitioning process,” the statement reads. “Prevea Health is committed to an earlier start date of Fall 2022.”
As also mentioned in the SSA’s “Supporting Transgender Healthcare” legislation, Prevea said in its statement that it is exploring the possibility of working with a current SHS staff member during the Spring 2022 semester.
Prevea said it could potentially use this individual’s expertise to aid in meeting its new goal of providing HRT by the Fall 2022 semester, and in the interim, Prevea said it will refer new patients to local providers who currently offer HRT.
After receiving this statement, the CVPost followed up with Deja to request again an interview with Rubenzer, Johnson or both individuals. In this follow-up email, the CVPost also asked if there will be any additional costs for UW-Stout students who are referred to local providers while Prevea is learning how to give HRT.
In response to this second request, Deja wrote only, “We do not have any additional information to provide at this time.”
Only some questions answered
On Nov. 22, the CVPost sent a repeated open records request to Krimpelbein, asking for the names of the individuals who were on the committee that assessed responses to the request for proposals to replace SHS.
After returning from vacation, Krimpelbein sent an email on Dec. 3 listing the members of the RFP committee as:
Jacqueline Bonneville, UW-Stout’s interim associate dean of students; Dumke; Janice Lawrence-Ramaeker, a recent director of SHS at UW-Stout; Helen Luce, the medical director of UW-Stevens Point’s SHS; Lisa Raethke, interim director of SHS at UW-Stout; Ken Ries, chief information security officer at UW-River Falls and Stout; Sandi Scott, the UW-Stout dean of students; and Erin Sullivan, associate athletic director at UW-Stout.
In the same open records request sent on Nov. 22, the CVPost asked why Dr. Alexandra Hall, a family physician who has been providing transgender health care at SHS, will not be continuing on staff throughout the Prevea arrangement.
Several students raised concerns during the open forum event on Nov. 15 about why Dr. Hall will not be continuing through the arrangement, and Krimpelbein said in her response on Dec. 3 that “UW-Stout will not be commenting on Dr. Hall’s personnel situation.”
In response to two emails from the CVPost, Hall didn’t answer questions about why she won’t be continuing at SHS under the Prevea partnership, saying it is not her position to speak to the press.
However, it should be noted that Coltan Schoenike, a UW-Stout alum and a mental health practitioner in the Menomonie area, asked a series of questions during the open forum about the positions that Prevea offered to existing SHS employees for this upcoming transition.
Schoenike asked if any doctor of medicine (MD) positions were offered to SHS employees for the Prevea partnership and Rubenzer said the medical director MD position is going to be filled internally by a Prevea employee.
“So someone like Alex Hall, MD, theoretically wouldn’t have the chance to apply because there wasn’t a position for her?” Schoenike asked during the open forum.
Rubenzer responded to Schoenike and said the RFP — when it was written and agreed upon by Prevea and UW-Stout — did not include a part-time medical provider or physician position, which were jobs that may have been applicable to Hall.
Following Krimpelbein’s response to the first request, the CVPost sent another request on Dec. 6, asking for a copy of the contract between UW-Stout and Prevea Health, which would include the total amount that UW-Stout will pay to Prevea under that contract.
The CVPost also requested copies of the three proposals submitted by Prevea, Marshfield Clinic and Weber Health to the RFP committee and a copy of SHS’ budget for 2021. Those were sent on Dec. 17 and will be discussed in a future CVPost analysis.