Physical health problems, as with mental illness or substance abuse disorders, can pose serious challenges to an individual's reintegration into the community and compliance with terms and conditions of community supervision. A sick person may not be able to meet regularly with a probation officer, much less hold down a job. Community corrections officers should promote access to and compliance with health treatment services by probationers or parolees with physical ailments. They should also recognize when meeting these needs should take precedence over the fulfillment of other conditions of release or reintegration goals, such as community service or other programming.

Just as supervision officers should seek to bridge the gap between corrections-based and community-based providers for people with mental illness or substance abuse issues, they should facilitate the engagement of community-based providers for people who have physical health needs. The supervision officer wields a significant tool to promote compliance with treatment that the doctor or other health care provider does not: the ability to impose sanctions or provide incentives for an individual related to his or her supervision conditions. While community-based health care providers may be frustrated by appointment no-shows, their ability to sanction such delinquency is limited. Health care providers and community corrections officers should collaborate to first encourage compliance and, if necessary, to sanction noncompliance. As in the case of substance abuse or mental health treatment, probationers or parolees should not be sanctioned for failures that occur as a result of problems with the delivery of services or that are beyond their control. Community corrections officers and health care providers should establish lines of communication to identify the cause of compliance failures and to address conflicts or systemic problems. Whenever sharing information relating to health records, health care providers and community corrections officers must be careful to comply with legal privacy protections and to seek releases from individuals when needed. (See Policy Statement 5, Promoting Systems Integration and Coordination, for more on sharing information appropriately.)