Indiana Prison Health Care Department Case Study

Indiana Prison Health Care Department - Case Study Example In this case study, we will focus on the healthcare spending of the Indiana state prison, which has a population of 13,000, and how to reduce the spending on the prison. Generally, Indiana prison has been considered to have the lowest total administrative cost of its healthcare department. In the Fiscal year of 2014, the Indiana Department of correction had a total of $542.2 million in prison expenditure in which 20 percent of this expenditure went to its healthcare expenditure (Chokshi, 2013). The total administrative cost of the Indiana prison health care department, therefore, amounted to about $110 million in this year. Given its population of 13,000, it is thus approximated that the per-prisoner cost of medical care is about $8462. According to research, it has been observed that the females in Indiana prisons have more health problems than their male counterparts. This is particularly due to their delicate, feminine body that is vulnerable to many health complications. In addition to this, is the fact that most female prisoners get pregnant during their time in prison and therefore require frequent medication and multiple checkups to ensure safe delivery of the newly born. However, due to the majority of the male prisoners who hold 80 percent of the total inmates in Indiana State, most of the state prison expenditure goes to them (Paterson, 2014). 70 percent of the total health spending in the prison, which amounts to $ 77M goes to the male inmates while the female prisoners only consume around $33M of the total health expenditure. Twenty percent of the prisoners who are HIV positive require special at a tension in their treatment and therefore their medication is quite costly compared to those who are negative. Similarly, the elderly prisoner (those who are over the age of 55) has a higher cost of medication  than the younger population due to their frequent ailments (Mikle & Park, 2013).