One mobile radiology group is going to start making house calls — to the Big House, that is.

Kansas Mobile Solutions, a division of Wichita Radiological Group after the latter's acquisition of Radiology Services and a sister operation, Diagnostic Ultrasound Services, has just won a contract to give mobile X-ray, ultrasound and EKG services to inmates at the Reno County Correctional Facility.

The Reno County commission gave its okay to the deal after hearing from jail nurse Linda McMann that she expected to see savings of “thousands a year” over the present approach — sending inmates to outside medical facilities, The Hutchinson News reported.
There would also be big savings from cutting out transportation of prisoners, Undersheriff Shawn McHaley told the commission, as it would eliminate the need to have two officers go along with an inmate and then hang around until the procedure was finished.

The deal would also improve health care for the incarcerated, according to McMann. The new deal calls for a one-hour response for the house call and a two-hour turnaround for the report of results. “Right now we may wait two days” for answers from a radiologist, noted the nurse.

The total savings can't be estimated precisely, but medical services like those to be provided onsite are required, McMann noted, “a couple of times a month.”

If they call the service out, the cost is $120 for the initial X-ray, then just $50 for each additional one, even if more than one inmate receives the services.

“At the clinic each one would be a separate bill,” McMann said.

The deal got started when McMann ran across a mobile service provider when she was at a training course in Topeka. That Kentucky-based vendor put her in touch with Kansas Mobile, which serves the jail's area.

The new deal for Reno County is the latest example of use of mobile radiology in the incarceration community. In fact, in 2011, Bay County, Michigan, commissioners gave the thumbs-up to its use there, granting MobliexUSA a contract similar to the one in Reno County.

At that time, its sheriff, John E. Miller, told MLive that it would be a savings because it eliminated the need for transportation of the inmate and that, “It’s a security thing, and that’s my main job, to look out for the security of citizens,” adding that “I’m also here to watch out for their tax dollars. We’re looking to save wherever we can, and this is one way to do it.”

Some of the challenges faced by radiologists when they make a house call to a prison are a bit different than they encounter out in the world.

For example, in Chicago's Cook County, just last month, such an unusual health care challenge involved inmates swallowing metal and other jailhouse debris.

“Oh my God, the amount of money we have spent — both in the hospital area and then in the staff having to watch these people — I couldn’t even calculate it,” Sheriff Tom Dart told CBS Chicago. “I know it’s in the millions.”

A single inmate, Lamont Cathey, he reported, has run up a tab of over a million dollars.

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