County Approves New Contract with Southern Health Partners for Inmate Medical Care

The DeKalb County Commission will enter into a new agreement with Southern Health Partners to provide inmate medical care at the DeKalb County Jail. The cost to the county will increase by 4% going from $96,463 to $100,322 per year.
The commission approved the contract during Monday night’s regular monthly meeting.
During a workshop meeting with the County Commission Thursday night, Sheriff Patrick Ray said it’s time for a renewal of the contract but that Southern Health Partners is asking for a 4% increase. The county currently pays $96,463 for the service each year. With the increase, the cost to the county would go to $100,322 per year.
According to Sheriff Ray, the county could choose not to pay the 4% increase, but if it exercised that option, the county would have to pick up the tab for all the inmates major prescription drug costs while in jail, an expense Southern Health Partners currently covers. “Our current contract is for $96,463. They want us to do either a 4% increase and them cover major drugs or keep it the same that we have it and let us cover the drugs. Those drugs are medications used to treat HIV AIDS, Renal failure, Hepatitis, Cancer, MS, Crohn’s disease, tissue organ rejection drugs, etc. I asked them to go back and look over this last year and see how much they were paying for those type drugs. We had an inmate during that time in jail who stayed there quite a few months who had one of these major diseases. Their (Southern Health Partners) costs was over $3,400 a month. You can see that a 4% increase would be less than $4,000. It would probably be cheaper on the county to do a 4% increase than to take a chance on inmates coming in with these type diseases if we have to furnish their medication. Any inmate that we have that comes in, whatever their disease is we have to treat,” Sheriff Ray told the county commission.
Southern Health Partners provides medical, dental, and mental health services to inmates in county jail facilities including on-site nurse staffing and regular physician visits— both of which also remain on-call.
The county commission could take no action Thursday night because it was only a workshop.