JASPER, Tenn. - Health care costs for Marion County Jail inmates had gotten out of control in 2018. County leaders had budgeted $450,000 to provide health care to inmates, but by March of last year all of that money was gone with four months left in the fiscal year.
By the end of that fiscal year, the county spent almost $1 million on inmate medical services after the Marion County Commission approved several budget amendments of over $100,000 each.
"We're not doing enough to make sure the [inmates] that do have insurance - that we're taking it from them," Commissioner Donald Blansett said in April 2018. "I don't know what that takes to get done. I guess when we bankrupt the county."
Some estimates about future inmate medical costs for the 2018-2019 fiscal year and beyond were as high as $2 million, so that sent county leaders including Sheriff Ronnie "Bo" Burnett on a hunt for a solution.
That answer came in the form of Southern Health Partners in Chattanooga, officials said, which the county hired for $222,440 per year to stem the skyrocketing costs in August.
At the board's January meeting, County Mayor David Jackson said 54.03 percent of the $450,000 inmate health care budget has been spent for this fiscal year, which ends on June 30.
"I think we'd be less than 50 percent if we had not received bills after July 1 that occurred in last year's budget," he said. "I think at the end of the [fiscal] year, we're going to be at $450,000 or less, and that's what we put in the budget last year."
Those late bills from last fiscal year totaled around $100,000, Jackson said.
Now, seven days a week for eight hours per day, nurses are available through the company to provide healthcare needs to inmates, such as X-rays, and Jackson said Southern Health Partners supervisors check in "quite often" to make sure everything is running smoothly.
"They're doing a good job," Burnett said.
Only four county jail inmates have been taken to the emergency room since August, which officials said is a drastic reduction from years past.
"It's just a more efficient process," Jackson said.
When the company began its work, 77 inmates were getting regular prescriptions.
"We're down to about seven or eight," Jackson said. "We're not getting those humongous drug bills either. It's worked real good. If there's a problem, the sheriff calls them, and they've taken care of it. Everything's going pretty good over at the jail."
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.