Health Services

Health Services sets the policy standards for the delivery of offender health care and evaluates the care provided throughout the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) system. Health Services performs extensive medical and dental screenings on all offenders immediately upon arrival at intake facilities. Tennessee's correctional health care system is a multidisciplinary approach that offers access to a health care delivery system providing offenders with access to such services as medical and dental sick call, emergency care, chronic care clinics, medication management, diagnostic tests and procedures, infirmaries, inpatient hospitalization, substance use treatment and specialty services working closely with Mental Health Services to ensure unified delivery of integrated health care.

The TDOC strives to improve the health status of its inmate population while providing for them a safe housing and working environment. Communicable illnesses such as TB, MRSA, and HIV/AIDS continue to be a major focus for Health Services. In addition, the department has begun to implement a major effort to standardize treatment plans and guidelines for the management of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, hepatitis c, and asthma.

Through the contract for medical services, Health Services utilizes managed care practices to assure the efficient management of our medical and dental operations and expenditures. The utilization management system is used to pre-approve all requests for specialty consultations. In addition, the Office of Clinical Services is committed to providing a level of care within the department's infirmaries that allow us to treat offenders at the institutional level, when clinically appropriate, instead of relying on more costly outpatient care.