Due to an unexpected amount of work, the Blaine County Commission has approved payment of an additional $40,000 to a private company that provides medical services for inmates in the county's new jail.
Under a contract that the county originally entered into last year with Colorado-based Correctional Healthcare Management, the company dispenses medicine and gives health checkups and other medical services to jail inmates. The facility in south Hailey was opened last summer.
During the commission's meeting in Hailey on Tuesday, Sheriff Walt Femling said changes to the contract are needed because the jail is housing more inmates than anticipated. That's partly because the county takes in inmates from surrounding counties, including Twin Falls, that lack space. Payment from those counties helps offset Blaine County's inmate expenses.
Femling said Correctional Healthcare Management has already surpassed by 728 hours the amount of time set forth in the original contract. He said the company could have been charging the county $35 per hour for those surplus hours, but hasn't.
"They have been a really good company for us," he said. "I just have to take my hat off to this company."
The commissioners also extended the contract through fiscal 2010. The county will pay Correctional Healthcare Management a total of $181,653 for the medical services during that time.
Femling said that despite the cost, having an outside medical provider has been a great benefit for the county. For one, sheriff's deputies no longer dispense medicine to inmates, which once exposed the county to high liability.
"We're out of that business entirely," he said. "It's on their liability."
Femling said transportation of inmates to the hospital for certain health care needs has been reduced since the county entered into the contract.
He said locking into a set contract through 2010 is "prudent" to avoid increased medical charges due to rising costs.
Jason Kauffman: jkauffman@mtexpress.com
