Incentive Payments
SSA offers incentives to correctional facilities for electronically submitting inmate rosters and offers payment in return for every inmate who is disenrolled for SSI once SSA is notified. (See Glossary for further information.) Corrections officials could consider reinvesting incentive payments into reentry programming for individuals who will need access to benefits on release.
Medicaid Coverage of Outstationed Worker Position
Medicaid may partially fund “outstationed” eligibility workers to help initially process applications in various community settings such as Federally Qualified Health Centers. In some communities, corrections staff have successfully negotiated with Medicaid agencies or local offices to enable outstationed workers to provide some services in correctional facilities. (See Washington, D.C., Jail Outstationed Worker.) While Medicaid will not cover the entirety of this person’s staff time spent in the corrections facility, corrections officials can work with Medicaid staff to develop a cost-sharing plan.
Medication Savings
According to the appeals court for the Ninth Circuit, the Eighth Amendment requires states to ensure that a released inmate who has been receiving medication while incarcerated leaves the facility with "a supply sufficient to ensure that he has that medication available during the period of time reasonably necessary to permit him to consult a doctor and obtain a new supply."[1] This decision is now law in California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Alaska and Hawaii.
Providing supplies of medication to individuals with serious mental illnesses, particularly multiple types of medication, can be very expensive for correctional facilities. Thus, if officials initiate programs to ensure immediate access to benefits or general assistance programs on release, the corrections facility may be able to avert spending on medications and reinvest savings into reentry programming for individuals who need access to benefits.
