Correctional or County Payers

• In the US, when a person is in custody and requires medical care than by law, he/she cannot use the benefit of his/her private insurance or federal insurance.

• However, Correctional facilities are responsible to provide health services to people who are incarcerated.

• The correctional facilities include prisons and jails.

• The Correctional facilities set up their own medical programs that get paid by the in charge of the jail and these Jails get paid by the government.

• Under the medical program, prisons hire doctors, nurses, counselors, etc. So, when a provider provides services to an inmate then the provider sends the bill to the jail or prison for reimbursement.

• When you are working on AR, you might get the payer names that include Correctional, County, Jail, Prisons, etc. These will confirm that the claim is related to the inmate and when you are making a call to get the bill status then you might be speaking to the jailor.

• When calling such a payer then always ask for the bill status and not for the claim status. Most of the time, they do not understand "Claim status". Also, they provide only limited information on the call. For example, you will get to know whether a bill is paid or denied. You will not get the denial date, reference#, etc.