A private company hired to provide medical treatment to Indiana's prisoners while saving taxpayer money has come under increasing scrutiny amid a spike in complaints, questions about oversight and allegations that profit often takes priority over critical health services for inmates.
Corizon Health, based in Brentwood, Tenn., is the largest correctional medical company in the country. It provides health care services to jails and prisons in 25 states, including Indiana and Michigan.
A spokesman for Indiana's Department of Correction defended the medical care provided to the state's approximately 26,000 prisoners, saying, “I am confident that our clinical metrics for chronic conditions are better than the free world.”
But in the last few years:
• The number of inmate medical complaints filed with the ombudsman for Indiana's DOC has spiked, from 153 in 2010 to 509 in 2015. The number of prisoner deaths, including suicides, also rose, reaching 86 in 2015.
• Prisoners or their families have filed at least 178 medical-related civil rights lawsuits in federal courts in Indiana against Corizon since 2011 — 46 of those in 2015 alone. The state has settled nearly three dozen of those cases, paying out more than $1.2 million.
The settlements range from $300 for a prisoner whose appeal relating to his cataracts was denied, to $400,000 to the mother of a prisoner who was murdered by a mentally ill cellmate.
A spokesman for the state attorney general's office emphasized that settlements are not admissions of guilt but "avoid the uncertainties of further litigation where taxpayer dollars would be at stake."
• When asked about prescription drugs for inmates, state officials provided two different and varying sets of figures — both of which showed odd patterns.