In an effort to reduce overall costs to the county of providing inmate healthcare, the DeKalb County Commission has approved a one year contract with another company, Advanced Correctional Healthcare.
The agreement will take effect August 29.
A 60 day notice of termination has been given to the current provider, Southern Health Partners.
Although the new company’s services are more expensive, $204,000 per year compared to $175,000 for Southern Health Partners, Sheriff Patrick Ray believes the county will save money in the long run by having healthcare practitioners at the jail more often which could prevent taking inmates on unnecessary trips to the emergency room of the hospital for more costly treatment. “In the plan we’re on now we have a nurse who is there at the jail 32 hours a week. We have a doctor or a nurse practitioner from Southern Health Partners who comes in every other week or is on call as needed”.
“The proposal by the new healthcare company, Advanced Correctional Healthcare provides a doctor to us every week and we’ll have a nurse there for 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It gives us more healthcare coverage for inmates so we don’t have to take them to the emergency room all the time when the nurse is not there. We’re hoping this will cut down on some of our ER trips because a nurse will be there more often to view the inmates and determine what the next step will be,” the Sheriff said.
According to Sheriff Ray, when no doctor or nurse is on site and a prisoner gets sick, the protocol now is that a call is made to a nurse for a decision on whether to carry the inmate to the emergency room of the hospital. “The way our health care system is now , if an inmate gets sick after hours after the nurse has already left, we have to call the nurse. The nurse then has to call the doctor, and the doctor will make a determination what to do and call the nurse back, and then the nurse will call us. With this new program through Advanced Correctional Healthcare, our correctional officers will make the call and talk directly with the doctor and he will tell us what to do,” he said.
Advanced Correctional Healthcare will also be active in trying a negotiate a better deal for the county on medical services to inmates who have to be hospitalized or treated elsewhere. “In this plan is a bill reduction for the county. If we have to send an inmate to a hospital other than our local hospital then the company will take those bills and try to get a reduced rate. We’re hoping for a Medicare rate on those instead of full price,” he said.
“They have also agreed to take some bills left over from the prior healthcare company (Southern Health Partners) probably $100,000 worth of bills and get a reduced rate. We had one inmate that was airlifted out and we have a bill of $44,000 for the air helicopter that took him there (hospital) and also a bill for his three day stay at an outside hospital. They have agreed to try and get those costs reduced down,” said Sheriff Ray.
Advanced Correctional Healthcare also offers group pricing on office supplies and products that other entities of county government could share in to save money. “This healthcare company offers a program of group pricing on some things that the whole county can take advantage of. It can be anything from copy paper to ink pens and office furniture, etc. and we can also order mats, blankets, wash cloths, and other things at a reduced rate. We’re hoping with this that we can save an additional amount of money,” Sheriff Ray said.
The company will further reimburse the county if the jail does not house an average of 85 inmates per day. “We told them we averaged housing 85 inmates per day. In reality we’re at 70 to 75 inmates per day unless we have a court date coming up or something like that. They have agreed to refund money to the county if we do not have 85 prisoners per day so anything left over at the end of the month, if the average is below 85 inmates then they will reimburse us money back,” said Sheriff Ray.
The County Commission’s Emergency Services and Budget Committees recommended making the switch to Advanced Correctional Healthcare and the new contract was approved during the regular monthly meeting of the County Commission on Monday, June 27.
Funding for the new contract has been included in the proposed 2016-17 budget to be acted upon by the County Commission on Monday, July 25.
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