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For the most part, inmate healthcare costs at Bay Area jails runs about $8,000 per detainee, which is why Marin County Jail officials are trying to understand why they're paying close to twice that amount.

A recent grand jury report found that their county's detention facility is shelling out approximately $15,000 for each inmate.

The report was commissioned as a part of a follow up to a 2005 study on in-jail healthcare costs.

So what is a county to do?  Well, for starters, the grand jury is suggesting that quite a few bucks can be saved by contracting out certain segments to healthcare providers.  Mental health services, for example, does not actually require an in-house staff.

The same suggestion is being made for dental and medical.

Another stone which has not yet been overturned relates to the Marin jails looking into finding a local service provider that can help enroll eligible inmates into the state's Medi-Cal program, which will definitely help save some big bucks.

Part of the challenge, according to county officials, relates to the state's inmate realignment program, which basically shifted a large number of people who would have been serving time in California prisons to smaller, county jails.

Counties throughout the state are still working through the growing pains and are trying to keep up with the ever-changing and evolving needs of their respective inmate populations.   Trying to make it work, in a cost-effective way, has been the real challenge.

Another thing they're looking into is bringing on someone who can administer emergency psychiatric meds to patients who need them.  As it stands, those detainees are currently being transported to the Santa Clara County Jail to receive care- and it costs upward of $1.500 per day to treat them.

Working with a local provider, they said, can also help minimize this type of expense.

All in all, the county and the jail are working to find a way to reel in costs, and the dialogue is expected to continue in the months and years to come.