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Inmate Medical Cost Reduced

News - Linn County News

Written by Charlene Sims

Wednesday, 28 October 2009 07:00

MOUND CITY — Linn County Sheriff Barry Walker told the Linn County Commission Monday that the county will be paying less in medical costs for the jail prisoners.

“A couple of years ago, a statute was passed that prisoners could qualify for the Medicaid rate,” Walker said. The sheriff said he heard about this during his sheriff’s training and had asked Mercy Hospital at Fort Scott as he received bills for prisoners.
He said Mercy officials told him the sheriff’s office was receiving a reduced rate.

Recently, Walker checked into this further and found the billing departments in the area hospitals did not understand how the rates were computed. The Crawford County sheriff told Walker it was necessary to go through a company in Tennessee to have the rates calculated and then pay the discounted rate.
Walker said he sent several bills to Correct Care Solutions in Nashville, Tenn., and he has already seen a marked savings.
Commissioner Vicki Leonard asked if he had tried this on prescriptions or any retroactive bills. Walker said he has not tried for a reduced rate yet on prescriptions but has tried one retroactive bill and was not successful.

After the meeting, Walker said he sent bills for $114.90, $365, and $220 and has been given the discounted rates of $18.53, $55 and $90.07 respectively. The savings on these bills came to $536.30 minus a $14.90 service charge per bill for a savings of $491.60.

Walker said he would like to work on lowering ambulance bills next. One prisoner’s ambulance trip to Mercy Hospital at Fort Scott cost the county $1,206.

“That was just the ambulance trip, because I went with him so there would be no overtime for deputies,” Walker explained.
Another prisoner had two ambulance trips to Fort Scott for just over $2,330.

“I think that we should get a discount from the ambulance since the county is subsidizing the service,” Walker said.

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