Imperial County changes Inmate Medical Service Plan for first time in 20 Years
EL CENTRO – The Imperial County Sheriff ’s Office (ICSO), Corrections Division will be changing their inmate medical services provider for the first time in 20 years, bringing in NaphCare Inmate Medical Services.
According to ICSO Undersheriff Robert Benavidez, ICSO has been using Wellpath as a health care provider for more than 20 years, but after a round of requests for proposals, ICSO found NaphCare offered a wider variety of services.
On Tuesday, February 14, the Imperial County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously with little discussion to approve the contract with NaphCare for Inmate and Juvenile Ward Medical Services for the term of March 1, 2023 to January 31, 2026.
“I’ll make a motion to approve. After working in the Corrections Department, I know how important these (medical) services are,” District 3 Supervisor Michael Kelley said.
NaphCare Medical Services’ contract says they will offer a variety of preventative health care options for incarcerated juvenile and adult offenders.
According to a letter from Sheriff Miramontes to the Board of Supervisors, Naphcare’s vision is
“to handle medical services in-house without the utilization of contracting out including radiology, laboratory, dental, vision, mental health, health assessments, and maternity services.”
To reach that end, Miramontes said that this new contract will include 24/7 telehealth, expanded mental health stabilization units and personnel, in-house dental, in-house pharmacy, discharge planning to include specific staff for California Advanced and Innovative Medi-Cal, substance disorder/withdrawal/detox treatment, and daily reporting available to all staff.
The incorporation of increasing in-house medical service functions is an overall cost savings method for the county’s overall costs associated with incarcerated person care, including custodial staff response and care, transportation costs, medical facility costs, medical costs, and staff shortage costs (overtime).
The NaphCare contract is for a 3-year term with 2 optional years, with a cost of $7,171,734 for the first year and an increase of 5% each consecutive year.
Benavidez said this contract will not impact the County General Fund this fiscal year, and the total cost for the NaphCare Medical Services Agreement for the remainder of FY 2022-2023 is $2,390,578.
ICSO Corrections Division and Probation Corrections – Juvenile Hall will share the cost of this contract, according to Miramontes’ letter, with ICSO Corrections Division’s share of cost being $2,249,062 and Probation Corrections – Juvenile Hall’s being $141,516.
The decision to change health care providers was overseen by County Purchasing, Benavidez said, who formed an evaluation committee to review and score specific criteria amongst vendors applying for the position.
NaphCare was the unanimous decision among the seven committee members, Benavidez said, which was comprised of members from ICSO, Probation and Department of Public Health, based upon services offered, staffing available, programing capabilities, and costs.
“Unanimously, all seven committee members found that NaphCare’s cost were the lowest, that the services were accommodating to both (Imperial County Jail and Imperial County Juvenile Hall), and the references provided were what we wanted to adhere to in the facilities,” Benavidez said.