Suffolk taxpayers are out $8.2 million from the county’s failure to bill for services provided at methadone and mental health clinics, according to a recent report by Comptroller John Kennedy.
He blamed the losses on the 2022 cyberattack, which paralyzed county operations for months. “We’re still cleaning up the mess from the attack,” said Kennedy, a frequent critic of former county Executive Steve Bellone, who shut down Suffolk’s computer network rather than succumb to ransom demands by the hackers.
The Department of Health’s Community Mental Hygiene Division served about 1,100 patients at four Opioid Treatment Program clinics and 330 at two Mental Health clinics each month during the review period spanning the last year of the Bellone administration. The services, costing $11.6 million, are mostly reimbursed by Medicare, Medicaid, and private providers. More than 117,000 visits were made to the clinics last year, mainly for Methadone doses and counseling.
Kennedy urged Bellone’s successor, County Executive Ed Romaine, to negotiate with the reimbursing agencies to recover the lost funds, noting that the level of service and the costs have been consistent year over year. “They should recognize that we had an unusual occurrence with the cyberattack,” the comptroller said. “The services were rendered; we should be reimbursed.”
One health services professional contacted by the South Shore Press noted that though the county paid for the services, the loss of funds could affect future programs.
The Department of Health has operated methadone clinics since the 1960s and 1970s. It’s discontinuing services at the Brentwood Mental Health Center due to the lack of sufficient psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, according to Kennedy.
The Comptroller also noted that the number of vacant positions at the Department of Health Services steadily increased during the Bellone years from 181 in 2014 to 261 in 2023. “The 31% staffing shortage, as of September 2023, indicates that recruiting and retaining qualified personnel continues to be problematic for the Department,” the comptroller reported.
According to Kennedy, his office was locked out of the systems implemented by Bellone’s Department of Information Technology as it scrambled to recover after the attack. The agencies require billing to be done electronically, which he was unable to do, a problem corrected under the Romaine administration. Still, the report says another $1 million in reimbursements that were outside of the review period could be lost.
A special committee of the Suffolk Legislature found that lax security and failure to upgrade to more modern data protection allowed the hackers to take over the county’s system. Bellone refused a $2.5 million ransom demand and shut down the network, severely limiting the operations of departments such as the comptroller’s office.
“There certainly was a lot of waste of taxpayer dollars,” Kennedy stated. He recommended that county officials contact elected representatives of the federal government to help secure the reimbursements. In addition, he suggested the transfer of staff within the health department to work on the billing backlog and give it the ability to hire entry-level personnel outside of the written exam requirements of civil service.