The Meadville Tribune
SAEGERTOWN, Pa. — The Crawford County jail’s medical provider estimates it has saved the county $2.83 million on inmate health care since 2013.
However, that doesn’t mean the county has a pile of spending cash. The savings has helped the county hold off the need for a county property tax increase to fund the county’s annual operating budget, according to Francis Weiderspahn Jr., chairman of county commissioners and a member of the Crawford County Prison Board.
Officials of PrimeCare Medical Inc. of Harrisburg presented the firm’s annual operating review at the jail at Thursday’s meeting of the prison board.
In 2012, the county hired PrimeCare Medical Inc. of Harrisburg to manage the jail’s health care. The company began partial service to the county in November 2012 and then took over all medical services in January 2013. The county previously had various contracts for individual medical services such as physician, dental, psychiatric and pharmacy rather than one comprehensive contract as it does with PrimeCare, which manages medical services for 62 correctional facilities in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New Hampshire.
“We believe we’ve provided a very reasonable service that’s provided substantial savings back to the county,” Francis Komykoski, vice president of operations, said at Thursday’s meeting at the jail. “I’m very, very pleased with the overall management.”
The county’s total health care costs for the jail were $1.65 million in 2011 and $1.07 million in 2012 under the old multiple contract system.
Under PrimeCare, the jail’s total health care costs were $791,437 in 2013; $734,512 in 2014; and $886,483 in 2015, but in May 2015, a full time mental health counselor position was added to the PrimeCare’s contract at a cost of $59,200. That counselor has seen more than 780 patients since the position was established.
Since 2013, the estimated savings for comprehensive health services to Crawford County will be more than $2,830,000, based on financial data and information provided during the 2012 request for proposal process, according to Komykoski.
Komykoski the jail has not had a single lawsuit filed against it over medical care in the three years PrimeCare has been managing the health care system.
The $2.83 million in savings for the county is a reduction in the cost of doing business, Weiderspahn said.
“It’s less money we have to put in the budget for the jail,” Weiderspahn said. “It means there’s a less of a chance we have to raise taxes to fund the county’s operating budget.”
Crawford County’s 2016 budget did have 0.25-mill increase in county property taxes, but it’s dedicated to pay interest costs on the new $17 million county judicial center. The county’s property tax millage is 19.1 mills for 2016 so for a property with a $25,000 assessed value, county real estate tax rose by $6.25 a year, from $471.25 in 2015 to $477.50 in 2016.
Due to the county’s classification, the state requires the Prison Board be comprised of the county’s three commissioners, treasurer, sheriff, district attorney and a county judge. Members of the Crawford County Prison Board are Commissioners Weiderspahn, Chris Soff and John Amato, Treasurer Christine Krzysiak, Crawford County Court of Common Pleas Judge John Spataro, Sheriff Nick Hoke and District Attorney Francis Schultz.
Copyright 2016 The Meadville Tribune