In response to a multimillion-dollar lawsuit tied to the femicide of Ivette Joan Meléndez Vega, the company Physician Correctional claimed that no investigation into the release of convicted murderer Hermes Ávila Vázquez found the corporation at fault.
“We are surprised to have been included in the lawsuit, considering that no forum investigating the case has identified any fault on the part of our company,” said Bárbara Méndez, director of Administration and Operations at Physician Correctional, in a press release.
However, investigations by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR), the Department of Justice, and the Puerto Rico Senate contradict that claim. According to their reports, the company failed in several aspects of the process that led to Ávila Vázquez’s release. The inmate had feigned paraplegia to qualify for release under Act 25 of 1992, which allows terminally ill inmates to be released.
Physician Correctional, legally registered as Physician HMO, has operated Puerto Rico’s correctional health program since October 2018. The company’s doctors evaluated Ávila Vázquez’s request and recommended his release. Both the DCR and the Senate concluded that Physician Correctional demonstrated negligence in handling the case. While the Department of Justice found no criminal wrongdoing, it determined that the company’s doctors had violated procedures governing the inmate release process.
Despite those findings, the company insisted in its statement that investigators “concluded that [Physician Correctional] complied with all provisions of its contract and that no negligence could be established.”
At the time of his release in 2023, Ávila Vázquez was serving a 122-year sentence for the murder of another woman, Celia López García. He was granted an extended compassionate pass to leave prison under Act 25, based on his supposed health condition.
That law requires a medical evaluation of the inmate, followed by a review by a panel of doctors. Physician Correctional’s panel reviewed Ávila Vázquez’s medical file and concluded he met the criteria for release, based on his claimed paraplegia. Their recommendation was one of several factors the DCR considered when granting him the pass.
One year later, in April 2024, Ávila Vázquez murdered Meléndez Vega. He confessed to the killing and was sentenced to 102 years in prison.
On April 14, 2025, Meléndez Vega’s family filed a $41 million lawsuit against the DCR, Physician Correctional, and others, citing negligence in the handling of Ávila Vázquez’s release. “The inmate managed to enter the free community by circumventing all applicable agency requirements,” the lawsuit states. It was filed in the Bayamón Superior Court.
An audit by UTICORP, a company that the DCR contracted to evaluate Physician Correctional’s performance, found that the medical panel’s review was deficient and incomplete. The auditors also noted that no tests had been performed to confirm Ávila Vázquez’s diagnosis, and that there were multiple reasons to deny his release.
A May 2024 internal DCR investigation concluded that Physician Correctional acted negligently. It stated that the doctors who recommended the release “made no effort to fully understand the medical information they were supposed to examine to issue a proper recommendation.” The report recommended that the DCR reconsider renewing its contract with the company. Despite this, the contract remains in effect.
In a separate report issued in December 2024, the Senate’s Commission on Community Initiatives, Mental Health, and Addiction — along with the Commission on Legal and Economic Development — found a “pattern of non-compliance with contractual clauses” by Physician Correctional and recommended terminating the contract.
However, the then-minority delegation of the New Progressive Party (PNP) submitted a dissenting report, stating that it could not “responsibly conclude” whether the company had violated any law or regulation. Still, it acknowledged that multiple public hearing testimonies revealed “serious failures in handling the case, which must be corrected.”
The Department of Justice also found no evidence that Physician Correctional’s doctors or DCR officials committed fraud, breached their duties, or were negligent. However, it did conclude that the doctors on the medical panel “did not carry out all professional actions required under existing standards.”
“The medical panel plays a vital and indispensable role in the decision to grant an extended pass for health reasons,” reads the October 2024 report. “Therefore, the recommendation must be made responsibly and competently, based on medical studies, tests, lab work, and other tools.”
That same month, the Justice Department referred the panel’s doctors to the Medical Licensing and Discipline Board for possible violations of professional standards. The Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) requested an update on the referral from the Department of Health but had not received a response as of publication.
In September 2023, the DCR renewed the Physician Correctional contract, worth nearly $73.8 million, through September 2028.
Governor Jenniffer González has pledged to cancel the company’s contract. But DCR Secretary Francisco Antonio Quiñones Rivera said in early April, during a House budget hearing, that the agency was still “internally discussing” the matter.
In a recent interview with Radio Isla, Quiñones Rivera declined to say whether he believes the company is providing adequate services, adding only that he was “being careful about making public statements regarding our evaluation.”
In November 2024, the CPI revealed that despite ongoing concerns about the handling of Ávila Vázquez’s case, Physician HMO was awarded contracts worth nearly $6.8 million by the Department of Health and the Administration of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
The CPI also reported in February 2025 that the DCR paid over $483,000 between 2017 and 2022 to Health Strategy Consulting to monitor contract compliance by Physician Correctional and the system’s previous operator. However, the DCR has no documentation showing what work, if any, the company performed in exchange for the payments.
This translation was generated with the assistance of AI and thoroughly reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and clarity.
