The Worcester County Jail plans to contract with a new medical care provider that will offer additional inmate services at a lower cost, jail officials say.
Not only does new provider CFG Health Systems offer a long list of specialty care that outgoing provider Wellpath did not, but CFG will provide services in-house that had frequently had required driving inmates to outside doctor appointments, according to Warden Tim Mulligan.
“If we could centralize all this to the jail, that would save us, big-time, on personnel. That would save us in gas getting to and from appointments,” Mulligan told the county commissioners at their Oct. 7 meeting in Snow Hill. “Overall, I think it’d be a really good move.”
CFG will provide 24-hour medical care and offers additional services like wound care, podiatry, and dental care – meaning inmates won’t need to leave the jail and be driven in county vehicles to doctor and dentist appointments, which Mulligan said occurs nearly on a daily basis.
The new three-year contract will be $1,799,992 for its first year, with consecutive 3.75% increases for years two and three. From there, CFG offers an option to extend the contract year-to-year at an additional 1.75% increase for years four and five.
CFG’s contract is flat-rate and does not include any pass-through costs. However, if the jail’s average daily population exceeds 132 inmates, then CFG reserves the right to charge a higher daily rate of $3.17 per inmate.
The commissioners approved this extension and the new contract unanimously.
Wellpath’s year-to-year contract, first inked in 2011, expired on June 30. The company had proposed a contract renewal for fiscal year 2026 at a rate of $1,899,740. Its most recent contract for fiscal year 2025 was $1,822,336.