By Brett Sholtis
LNP, Lancaster, Pa.
LANCASTER, Pa. — Lancaster County Commissioners on Tuesday approved a $29 million contract with PrimeCare Medical to provide health care and addiction treatment for people in jail and at the county’s Youth Intervention Center over the next three years.
Harrisburg -based PrimeCare has contracts with many county jails around Pennsylvania and is the current provider for approximately 1,000 inmates at Lancaster County Prison.
The new agreement, with two one-year options to extend it, will cost about $9.6 million per year. That’s a 71% cost increase from what the county paid PrimeCare under its current contract.
“A big part of this is staffing,” said Lancaster County Prison Warden Cheryl Steberger at a joint work and regular session of the commissioners. She said the prison has added positions for chronic care services, mental health care and for the medication assisted treatment program, which helps people addicted to opioids or other substances.
PrimeCare’s experience with providing medication assisted treatment was a key factor in selecting it over other providers, Steberger said. Prison officials considered two other companies during a six-month review.
“This was the best price, but price isn’t everything,” said Republican Commissioner Ray D’Agostino , adding that PrimeCare’s expertise was a deciding factor.
PrimeCare has served prisoners well, said Tom Zeager , past president of the faith-based nonprofit Justice & Mercy. Still, a 71% increase is concerning.
“The biggest concern I have at the jail is: We spend too much money keeping them there, and not enough money making them better,” Zeager said.
Zeager supports the use of medication assisted treatment and mental health care services. However, he pushes for a “day reporting” program, where, instead of sending people who committed nonviolent crimes to jail, they have to show up daily to a class. He said this helps prevent people from committing crimes again, and ending up back in jail.
“I do think the prison is trying to deal with the problem, and I’m anxious to see how it’s going to continue to work out,” Zeager said. “The cost of imprisonment is about $120 a day. And with a 60% recidivism rate, on average, that’s not a very good return.”
People often arrive at the county prison in need of mental health treatment, and current staffing doesn’t meet prisoners’ needs, said Jeannie Bickmire Fox , president of the prison reform group Have a Heart for Persons in the Criminal Justice System. Many others arrive with untreated medical conditions.
“There’s so many conditions people go in with,” she said. “People have some serious health care issues, and they haven’t necessarily been seen by health care professionals, so they could have dire conditions.”
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