The amount of research on people’s health post-prison remains slim. Marc Stern, the former assistant secretary of Washington State Department of Corrections’ health services, said the most definitive research comes from data on people who successfully finish substance abuse treatment programs they began while incarcerated.
“You cut down on costs, recidivism rates, unemployment,” Stern said. “It’s the high-risk period right after re-entry that makes or breaks someone.”
Stern said that while he was with the DOC, prisoners had opportunities to sign up for Medicaid before leaving. But he knows it differs between facilities. Cook County’s Breit agreed, saying he wasn’t even sure what the policies are within local halfway houses when it comes to continuing care. This disconnect, Breit said, may be one of the reasons HHS decided to issue April’s reminder.
“We’re all so siloed in our own facilities,” he said. “I think the government is trying to break down those walls to hold us all accountable for continuous care.”
Colleen Barry, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Kaiser Health News that she sees HHS’ announcement as a type of “encouragement and a nudge” to states to improve the computers used for enrollment. “They understand that this is a technology issue,” she said.
But Breit said communication may be the end challenge.
“A sheriff’s duty, technically speaking, is to hold an inmate as long as you’re told by law. When it’s time to go, it’s ‘See you later.’ They don’t always have time to think of what’s next, or what other prisons are doing,” he said. “It’s about taking that extra step that can keep those folks from coming back.”
Article Appeared @http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016/05/16/3777683/medicaid-coverage-former-prisoners/