County’s Jail Healthcare Provider Is Bankrupt

Milwaukee County Jail. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The company providing health care in the county’s correctional facilities has filed for bankruptcy.

Nashville-based Wellpath LLC announced Monday night it is filing Chapter 11 in Texas and selling off shares in the company and parts of the business. The moves are aimed at clearing up approximately $550 million in debt held by the firm and securing $160 million in financing to maintain current operations. The company’s local, state and federal government operations will be restructured.

“It’s our understanding that Wellpath will remain operational during their bankruptcy filing while the company restructures its debt,” a spokesperson for the county told Urban Milwaukee. “The administration is working to ensure there is no lapse of correctional medical care services available in the Milwaukee County Jail and CRC.”

Wellpath has provided correctional healthcare at the Milwaukee County Jail and the Community Reintegration Center (CRC) since 2019. It replaced Armor Correctional, which left behind an ugly track record including criminal convictions of Armor employees and numerous lawsuits related to the company’s work at the jail.

Neither the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, nor the CRC could be reached for comment as of publishing.

The county initially contracted with Wellpath for approximately $39.7 million over two years. In 2021, county policymakers agreed to a five-year, $109.2 million contract extension running until March 31, 2026.

Private correctional health care came to the county in the aftermath of a lawsuit filed in 1996. An inmate alleged the county violated his constitutional rights and provided inhumane living conditions. The settlement led to court-ordered third-party monitoring of health care at the jail. In 2012, then-sheriff David Clarke sought to bring in Armor Correctional, saying the jail was having trouble staffing its medical unit. The county board resisted, but Judge William W. Brash III ordered the county to contract with Armor to meet staffing requirements established in the legal settlement.

In 2016, a jail inmate, Terrill Thomas died of dehydration after the water to his cell was shut off. An investigation later revealed that Armor staff falsified records that said they performed medical checks on Thomas.

Despite going private, understaffing of jail health care has remained an issue in the jail. In 2019, with Armor on its way out, the county board considered moving health care in-house. But concerns about staffing, as well as the county’s budget, were brought against the effort, and eventually won out.

The jail is currently being audited by Creative Corrections, LLC, a firm based in Beaumont, Texas. The audit was commissioned by the county board following a series of deaths in the jail in recent years.

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