SNOW HILL — Greene County commissioners have approved a proposed revised contract with Southern Health Partners, a provider of inmate healthcare services for county and city correctional facilities.
The company manages nursing services, medical supplies and certain prescription medications for the county jail, and the current contract expired Friday.
Interim County Manager Richard Hicks presented a revised contract proposal that will save the county more than $19,000 this year beginning this month.
The problem, Hicks said about the current contract, is the county has been paying more than the base rate because it has been regularly exceeding the limits the current contract sets forth.
The county pays a base fee of $8,109 a month, or $97,308 a year, and Southern Health plans to increase the rate by 2 percent starting this month.
The contract charges a $1.71 per day for each inmate over the 65-inmate cap.
“Since we’ve started getting inmates from other jails in the state,” Hicks said, “we’ve exceeded the cap practically every month.”
Sheriff Lemmie Smith said the average number of inmates per day is about 70.
Certain outside expenses have a $15,000 cap.
“So anything that is not covered inside or if they have to be taken to the doctor,” Hicks said, “then all those costs outside of the jail go towards that $15,000 cap.”
The actual cost for those expenses was $24,812 through December and more costs have been accruing through January.
The county budgeted $100,000 in its medical and drugs account — more than $2,000 above the base fee. The outside pool limit is expected to be as much as $11,000, and the excess inmate per diem cost is estimated to be more than $12,354.
The base contract plus cap overages will cost the county about $120,662 this year, Hicks said. If the county renewed the same contract with the 2 percent increase, that figure would be about $122,000 next year, he said.
The revised contract charges an annual base fee of $103,443, increases the limit to 80 inmates, reduces the per diem fee to $1.25 and increases the nursing hours at the jail from 20 to 25 hours. The 2 percent increase is waived, and the $15,000 cap remains the same.
Hicks estimates overage costs of $1,500 for projected population per diem and $9,000 for outside cost overages, bringing the total annual cost to about $113,943, compared with the $122,000 it would have been if the contract remained the same.
In addition, Hicks mentioned the county receives periodic medical bills, usually averaging about $6,000, from the state Safekeeper program, where county inmates are given medical care at Central Prison in Raleigh. This month, however, the county got slapped with a $31,188 bill for an inmate who received cancer treatments.
“It’s kind of hard to anticipate people that you’re going to have, who’s going to get sick and who’s going to have to go to the hospital,” Commissioner James Shackleford said. “So that’s going to be an ongoing thing, not really being able to predict how much money we’re going to need for that jail.”