By Austin Harrington
Ames Tribune
STORY COUNTY — Inmates in the Story County Jail will soon receive medical treatment from a new company following a contract approval by the board of supervisors Tuesday. Until recently, the treatment of inmates was handled by Nashville-based company Correct Care Solutions. However, that company was purchased by a larger organization that decided to cut services to four different facilities in Iowa, including the Story County Jail, according to John Asmussen, jail administrator.
“Since we no longer had them as our contractor, we had to go out and look for another provider,” Asmussen said.
During that search, Asmussen said the county received bids from two different providers outlining the cost of providing medical services to inmates while incarcerated at the jail. The companies included MEND Correctional Care out of Waite Park, Minnesota for $231,900 and Advanced Correctional Healthcare of Peoria, Illinois for $213,362.
Although the MEND contract would cost approximately $20,000 more, in the end the supervisors chose to contract with MEND because they believed the company’s expanded services were worth the additional cost.
“Even at $231,900, it’s still less than we are currently spending. So, both of these are better than we’re currently spending and it looks to me like MEND comes the closest to providing what we’re currently getting,” county supervisor Rick Sanders said.
Some of the services offered by MEND include anytime on call service of both site practitioner and registered nurse to jail staff and on-site medical staffing during weekdays and weekends, as well as holidays.
The only service not provided under the new contract that was previously an option with the last medical services provider is the ability to take part in tele-psychiatry, which allows inmates to speak with a psychiatrist over a video-link instead of having them come to the jail in person. That service will now be provided by Integrated Telehealth Partners and will be part of a program paid for by the state’s mental health region.
“Our region actually has a psych-doctor that we can just partake of and the state of Iowa has funds allocated that we can utilize for that, so it shouldn’t cost us anything,” Asmussen said.
Asmussen didn’t say when the contracts would be finalized or when MEND would begin providing services for the jail, although he did say that he would begin that process following Tuesday’s meeting.