Desired results — 05/17/09

May 15, 2009 02:58 pm

— Six months after Boyd County Fiscal Court agreed to contract with Southern Health Partners to provide medical services at the Boyd County Detention Center, the new system has reduced medical costs at the jail, decreased the county’s liability in providing health care to inmates and likely resulted in improved medical care for those inmates who most need it.
The jail’s reduced health care costs are the most easily identifiable benefit of the new system. Under the old system, Boyd County was spending an average of $19,263 a month to provide health care for inmates. In all, the county spent just under $176,615 on health care for inmates during the 2007-08 fiscal year.
Under the management and professional care provided by Southern Health Partners, the cost of providing health care to inmates has dropped to $17,284 a month — and one should expect further savings as the new program finds ways to become more efficient.
Under the new program, Southern Health Partners provides a nurse at the jail 12 hours a day. That nurse is able to handle the health care needs of most inmates, but should more intensive care be needed, that decision is made by the registered nurse on duty and not by jail personnel who have no medical training. That not only eliminates needless trips to the hospital or to the offices of health care professionals for inmates whose ailments are not serious and can be successfully treated at the jail, but it also relieves the untrained jail personnel from making the decision on the type of care an inmate needs. The relieves the jail — and the county — of much of the liability it had when jail personnel were deciding what type of treatment inmates needed. Because they lacked the professional expertise and feared the consequences if they made the wrong decision about an inmate’s care, jail personnel typically erred on the side of caution. That, of course, added to the health costs encountered by the jail.
While the reduced costs under the new system was the primary reason for switching to Southern Health Partners, Boyd County Jailer Joe Burchett said that as far has he is concerned, the reduced liability provided under the new systems is the biggest advantage. He said he is elated to “get that part off our backs.”
Providing health care to those incarcerated at the jail will always be expensive, but the professional care provided by Southern Health Partners is reducing costs without negatively impacting the health care inmates receive. In fact, we think the inmates are probably getting better health care at a lower cost for the county. Other counties grappling with runaway costs for providing health care to inmates should look at the savings and other advantages of what Boyd County has done and consider implementing a similar program.