OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Supreme Court has agreed to decide a legal dispute between Oklahoma County and the University of Oklahoma Medical Center over who should pay for emergency medical care for county jail inmates.
The hospital is seeking roughly $3 million from the county to cover unpaid medicals bills. It’s the third time in the past 10 years that the hospital has asked the courts to help resolve a dispute with Oklahoma County, The Oklahoman reported Sunday. The county settled two prior lawsuits with the Medical Center, in 2005 and 2010, for a combined $8 million.
An Oklahoma County district judge ruled in December that while the Oklahoma County sheriff’s office has a “constitutional duty” to provide medical care to all county jail inmates, there is no complementary duty to force it to pay for that medical care.
Attorneys for the hospital filed the latest lawsuit against Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel and the Oklahoma County Board of Commissioners in April 2013, claiming the hospital was owed the seven-figure total for medical services provided to indigent inmates since 2011.
In court filings, the sheriff’s office is accused of not paying inmates’ medical bills or only paying a fraction of what the hospital says it is owed.
Kieran Maye, the hospital’s attorney, wrote in a court filing last week that the Oklahoma County Commissioners Board has paid only $266,940 of the roughly $3 million the hospital says it is owed.
Maye alleges that in addition to refusing to pay the medical bills, the sheriff’s office uses court-issued releases to shirk responsibility of other obligations.
Maye said the sheriff’s office continues to bring sick and badly injured inmates to the hospital’s emergency room, noting that medical bills continue to mount.