(The Center Square) – Spokane County officials are racing against time to hire a new medical provider at the downtown jail after the current one signaled in June that it will no longer provide services next year.
Spokane County CEO Scott Simmons told the Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday that there are currently four applicants for the contract. NaphCare has provided medical services to Spokane County Detention Services in various capacities for years and agreed to continue through 2028 last January.
According to the contract, either party could terminate the agreement “without cause” if they provide at least six months’ notice. Simmons said that the county received notification in June that NaphCare intended to vacate that agreement, upending state-mandated services with only months to prepare.
According to reporting by The Spokesman-Review, NaphCare decided to terminate the agreement due to the “unreasonable exposure of litigation.” The Alabama-based provider has paid out tens of millions of dollars in settlements to inmates and their families across the state, including in Spokane County.
“We’ve not been sitting idle,” Simmons said Tuesday. “We did some pre-planning even before we got notice, and the team is executing against a process to have someone on board by the end of the year.”
He noted that if needed, NaphCare expressed “willingness” to Michael Sparber, senior director of law and justice, to stay on board a little longer while the county gets situated. The goal is to have a new provider in place by Dec. 31, with a transition plan that ideally retains NaphCare’s personnel in Spokane.
In January, the commissioners discussed bringing medical services back in-house, as they had been more than a decade ago, but cost was a major factor. At the time, they said that renewing the agreement with NaphCare’s subsidiary, EverHealth, would cost taxpayers about $15.7 million for 2025.
If the commission had gone with in-house services, staffing the positions would have cost $9.3 million alone, before obtaining insurance and implementing the necessary technology and support systems to manage it all.
The board didn’t get into what the total costs would have been for in-house services, but recognized that it would likely far exceed that of NaphCare. Sparber told the commissioners on Tuesday that the price tag under the four applicants to replace NaphCare is about the same as what the county is currently paying.
“Honestly, there’s some good things that have come out of these conversations,” he said, recognizing that the price may dip slightly depending on which provider they pick. “Our concern has been about the staff.”
The current agreement with NaphCare includes a non-solicitation clause that prohibits the county from hiring NaphCare employees during the term of the contract. Despite working in local facilities, those employees belong to the provider, not Spokane County, but Sparber said they’re working around that.
He said that NaphCare has also expressed a “willingness” to work with the county on transferring staff.
Simmons said that staff interviewed the applicants last week and that the selection committee would compare those responses and pricing structures with the county’s needs before ranking each option.
“I expect we’d probably bring one back if it rose to the top,” Simmons said. “But we’ll share with you all the firms and how we evaluated them so you can see all the sausage making if you’d like.”
