Michigan has awarded a three-year, $326 million contract to a Tennessee company to treat prisoners with medical problems.   A state board approved the contract Tuesday, which means the company currently overseeing prison health care will be replaced starting in April.   Brentwood, Tenn.-based Prison Health Services will take over for St. Louis-based Correctional Medical Services.

CMS has hired doctors and others to see Michigan prisoners for about a decade. But a year ago, an independent review found that most doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants were seeing too few prisoners a day.   The review was ordered by Gov. Jennifer Granholm in 2006 after reports of inmates dying because of inadequate care.

The Volusia County Council and County Manager Jim Dinneen made a surprise move Thursday to take steps to open the mental-health portion of the jail health care contract to Act Corp. The arrangement could be a subcontract with Prison Health Services or a separate contract with the county.

The move brought praise from local community leaders who for months have called for a change. County administration and the corrections division were originally recommending extending Prison Health Services’ overall contract for 18 months until further review can be made. Its contract ends Sept. 30.

Prison Health Services, which along with the county has faced criticism and lawsuits over the care of inmates, will negotiate over the next 45 days with officials at Act and Stewart-Marchman Center, the area’s main mental-health and substance-abuse providers, which are merging services in October. Prison Health Services will continue providing mental-health care until the county approves a new arrangement…

Since Act many times treats the clients that end up in the jail and when they leave, County Chairman Frank Bruno said, “If we can put this together, it will be a win-win for the whole community.”  Councilman Jack Hayman said he’s had serious concerns with Prison Health Services. He agreed working with Act is a “first step in the right direction.”

More details at the News-Journal.

Clinics on Rikers Island now are run by [Prison Health Services] whose contract was just renewed for another three years. Though the quality of care has improved since the days when a private hospital ran the clinics, many advocates argue the system still has an attitude of us versus them, of prisoner versus guard and of control versus the powerless — certainly not conducive to quality care.

It is a massive job.

At any one time on Rikers, there are approximately 14,000 inmates, adding up to about 100,000 admissions in a given year. They are not mass murderers, but alleged drunk drivers or drug addicts, among others convicted of misdemeanors, and about 80 percent are being detained prior to trial. About a quarter are mentally ill, according to the health department, and a third are seen as extremely frail, plagued by severe drug addictions or chronic illnesses. An average inmate stays 40 days, but the most frequent discharge from Rikers Island is on day one. The population is constantly changing, moving from facility to facility or from imprisonment to freedom … All nine jails on the island have their own clinic, and the whole population is served by one infirmary. Inmates in more serious condition are sent [to city hospitals].

Future plans are in hand:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made public health a hallmark of his administration, and that focus has had an effect on Rikers Island … “If we can improve the health of those that are incarcerated than we can improve the health of the communities that they come from,” said Louise Cohen, deputy commissioner for health care access and improvement.

There is a great deal more information at the Gotham Gazette.

America Service Group Inc. (ASGR) on Wednesday said the company’s operating subsidiary, Prison Health Services, Inc. and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Corrections have agreed to extend by five years the term of the current contract under which PHS provides general healthcare and specialized medical services to the nearly 44,000 inmates in the custody of the Department. Annual revenues for 2006 under the contract were $68.5 million. The contract will now expire on August 31, 2013.