By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Carter County Fiscal Court met in a regularly scheduled session Monday evening to conduct the regular business of the county. Items on the agenda included the Reeves Hollow extension, and quarterly reports from the sheriff, clerk, and treasurer, as well as claims, transfers, and department reports. The meeting included an executive session, but no decision was made during that session. There were no comments or discussion from the public during this meeting.
The process was started on lengthening Reeves Hollow Road (County Road 1167 in District 3) by .203 miles, basically involving increasing the county’s maintenance on the existing road due to a new residence there. Two magistrates will investigate and bring their findings before the court at the next scheduled meeting.
Carter county jailer R.W. Boggs also informed the court that it was time to renegotiate the medical coverage at the county detention center. Boggs said there were only two groups that currently offer the coverage and said it was his recommendation to continue with the current provider. There is an increase in the coming year’s coverage of approximately $30,000.00, but Boggs said that if he opened it up for bids that increase would likely be more from another company.
“I believe that ultimately it will save us money to approve the current provider for another year,” Boggs told the court. “Our current provider is Fast Access, and they have been good to us.”
One benefit of that company was that they ‘scrub’ bills for the detention center. The detention center is entitled to the Medicare rate, but many companies bill over that amount. ‘Scrubbing’ is where Fast Access goes through the bills to check for these errors and encourage the companies to correct them. Fast Access offers this service to the detention center at no cost, whereas other providers might charge thousands of dollars. The fiscal court voted to keep Fast Access as the provider for the coming year.
But while he advised sticking with the current medical provider, Boggs said he wanted to rebid food service and the phone provider at the detention center. The phone service is a money maker, he said, but it has been some time since the current contract had been negotiated. He said that he believed the detention center might be able to increase that revenue through rebidding and would like to check on current available options.
He said that increased competition in the food service industry might also benefit the detention center.
“There are two new food providers,” Boggs said. “And we might be able to do better.”
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
