The St. Joseph County Commissioners have approved a $2.9 million contract outsourcing health care for county jail inmates. The jail has been providing its own medical services for inmates since 2019.
Before that, Beacon Health had been providing those services for nearly three decades. But when the company declined to renew its contract, the county police did not receive any bids and elected to take health care in-house.
But now, the health care is back to being outsourced under the $2.9 million contract Wellpath. The Nashville-based company is the largest for-profit provider of health care in America’s jails and prisons.
The contract is more expensive than the current spending on health care for inmates, but St. Joseph County Police Department attorney Troy Warner said it will save money in other ways.
“We believe that Wellpath will be a great benefit for the county, the inmates and the residents,” Warner said Tuesday.
Speaking to the County Council last week, who also approved the agreement, Warner said the biggest savings will come from the medical malpractice insurance premiums.
The county is currently on the hook for those, but under the new agreement that responsibility would fall to Wellpath.
Warner also told the council that if the county kept the health care in-house, they’d likely have to raise salaries to attract staff amid a nationwide shortage of nurses.
But privatized health care for inmates has faced criticism — a 2020 investigation by Reuters found that more than 60 percent of American jails and prisons outsource medical care to private companies, and that facilities with medical outsourcing have more inmate deaths per capita.
Mark Morrissey, Wellpath's regional director of operations, told the council last week that the company focuses on efficiency and providing “high-quality” care.
And in an Oct. 27 interview with the South Bend Tribune, Pete Agostino, another attorney with the county police, said he was involved in vetting Wellpath and determined the company has a better track record than several of its privatized prison health care peers.
All three County Commissioners voted to approve the contract Tuesday.
Contact Jakob at jlazzaro@wvpe.org or follow him on Twitter at @JakobLazzaro.
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