Medical costs down for inmates

The county is paying big bills from inmates' surgeries.
By DEBORA SHAULIS
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The cost of providing medical care to Mahoning County Jail inmates is declining, but only because jail population has been limited.
Jail Nurse Robert Knight gave county commissioners a budget request for 2006 of $1.53 million, which is about $400,000 less than what the department received this year.
The difference, Knight said Monday, is the federal consent decree that U.S. District Court Judge David Dowd issued in March to correct problems at the jail. The judge ruled that the constitutional rights of inmates were being violated by overcrowding and understaffing. Inmate population is capped at 296; capacity is 564.
The county assumes all medical, dental and mental health care costs for inmates while they are incarcerated, Knight said.
Mahoning County is in the final year of a four-year contract with Prison Health Services Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn., to provide most health-care services for inmates. Prison Health Services supplies staff, medications and supplies, and pays hospital bills.
About the pact
That contract was costing the county about $149,000 per month to cover 550 inmates, with an extra $2.64 per day for every additional inmate, Knight said. Now the county is paying $110,703 per month so long as inmate population is between 301 and 350.
The 2006 contract with Prison Health Services is $1.37 million, Knight said.
The county also is "getting caught up" on some bills from some "catastrophic" surgeries that inmates needed in 2004, including open heart surgery, Knight said. Prison Health Services pays up to $150,000 per occurrence; the county pays the remainder, he said.
The jail medical contract will go up for bid after 2006, but Knight said it won't be easy to attract bidders because the future population of the jail is uncertain. Some businesses don't want to bid on contracts to serve fewer than 500 inmates, he said.
Knight estimates that half of Mahoning County's inmates take prescription medications. Other inmates are getting diagnosed with illnesses such as diabetes while in jail because they don't have health care.
"Our area is big for people who have a lot of illnesses," Knight said.
shaulis@vindy.com