Medical & Mental Health in Delaware (DOC)

Who Provides Care

Healthcare in Delaware’s facilities is delivered by contract providers: VitalCore Health Strategies has held both the medical and the behavioral-health contracts since July 1, 2023, replacing Centurion, with Correct Rx as the pharmacy contractor — all three listed on DOC’s healthcare page. The VitalCore agreements’ initial term runs through June 30, 2026, with renewal options; whether the contract continues past that date had not been published as of this writing, so the provider name is the detail most likely to change here.

How a Person Gets Care

Delaware publishes its medical procedures in dated policies. The access basics:

• Sick call requests can be verbal, written (locked request boxes in every housing unit, collected at least daily), or electronic. A nurse sees the person face to face within 24 hours of the request, and healthcare services operate seven days a week at every facility.
• If a problem is not resolved after two nurse sick-call visits, referral to a provider is required by policy.
• Chronic care clinics handle ongoing conditions, and the published access policy guarantees substance-use and opioid-use-disorder treatment at all Level IV and V facilities, with medication-assisted treatment continued for people who arrive on it.
• Dental care operates at Level IV and V facilities.

What It Costs

Delaware is one of the few states that publishes its co-pay schedule: $4 for a sick-call visit the person initiates, $2 per prescription, the first pair of eyeglasses free ($2 to replace), and $4 for denture services. The policy’s own words: “Offenders will not be denied care due to lack of available funds.”

Just as important is what carries no co-pay: visits staff initiate, intake assessments, chronic-care clinics, emergency and infirmary care, behavioral health services, ordered labs, and contagious-disease care. A person seen three or more times in seven days for the same problem stops being charged for it. Unpaid co-pays become account debts collected from later deposits — which is how a medical issue can quietly shrink the commissary balance, covered in Sending Money.

Mental Health Services

The published mental-health policy runs from screening and full evaluations at intake through outpatient, intensive outpatient, and residential treatment units at Level IV and V facilities. Behavioral health care carries no co-pay.

Pregnancy Care

Delaware’s pregnancy-care policy, reissued in June 2025, is among the more detailed published anywhere: pregnancy testing at intake and 30 days after admission, prenatal care to professional (ACOG) standards, mental-health visits at least every 30 days during pregnancy with structured postpartum follow-up, priority placement in medication-assisted treatment for pregnant women with opioid use disorder, and a requirement that midwifery or doula services be available, with birth plans. The policy’s framing places deliveries at hospitals rather than in the facility, with emergency delivery equipment required at every facility housing women.

When Care Falls Short: the Grievance Process

Healthcare complaints have their own published process, and the deadline is the thing to know first: a grievance must be filed with the facility’s grievance chair within 7 calendar days of the incident, one issue per grievance, and sick call must have been used first. The steps:

1. Informal resolution attempt within 14 days; the person has 7 days to accept or reject the result
2. Medical Grievance Committee hearing within 30 days of a rejection, with accepted recommendations implemented within 7 days
3. Appeal within 7 days to the healthcare bureau, where the bureau chief makes the final decision

The whole process is capped at 180 days, and emergency medical grievances are answered within 24 hours. The person files these themselves — there is no published family-initiated medical grievance.

What Family Members Can Do

Delaware publishes no general medical hotline for families, but there are real channels:

• Sexual abuse (PREA): families and friends can report on a person’s behalf — to the administration of the facility where they’re housed, or to the Department PREA Coordinator at 245 McKee Road, Dover, DE 19904, (302) 857-5435, DOC_PREA@delaware.gov. Retaliation protections extend to third-party reporters by policy.
• Medical concerns: the Bureau of Healthcare, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services takes calls at (302) 857-5429; DOC Community Relations is (302) 857-5470. For an urgent worry about someone’s safety, call the facility and ask for the Shift Commander.
• Medical privacy rules limit what staff can tell you about diagnosis and treatment — concerns in writing to the warden create a record even when details can’t be shared.

Verify Before Acting

For the general, nationwide overview of this topic, see the national guide: Know Your Rights.