# Sigue el Dinero: Atención Médica

**Published**: 2026-07-20
**Source**: https://gps.press/es/follow-the-money-es/medical/
**Author**: Georgia Prisoners' Speak

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[Saltar al contenido](#content)
The no-bid number$2.4B

Georgia’s current prison-healthcare contract was handed to a single for-profit company — **Centurion** — through a **no-bid “emergency procurement”** in 2024, for roughly **$2.4 billion**. That one contract is **larger than everything the state actually paid for inmate medical care over the previous eight years combined.** A Fulton County judge dismissed the ousted incumbent’s challenge, and the scoring behind the award has never been made public. Source: GPB / Georgia news on the 2024 GDC healthcare award; Open Georgia FY2018–2025 payment totals.

Eight years of it

## The money over time

$240M
FY18
$256M
FY19
$260M
FY20
$262M
FY21
$251M
FY22
$245M
FY23
$250M
FY24
$296M
FY25

GDC medical-vendor payments per fiscal year (Open Georgia). The line barely moved as care was privatized — the money bought a change of contractor, not better care.

Where it goes

## Follow each dollar

Channel 1

### The public-university era

$878Mto Augusta University, FY18–25

For about **23 years**, a **public university** — **Augusta University** — ran Georgia’s inmate medical care as *Georgia Correctional HealthCare*, until the state privatized in 2021. It remains the single largest medical payee in the records. The understaffing and death controversy that trailed **Augusta State Medical Prison** — including a death ruled a homicide and federal charges against former officers — is part of why this money is worth following.

Sources: Open Georgia; GPB/AJC on the Augusta State Medical Prison cases; GDC Annual Reports.

Channel 2

### The for-profit turn — Wellpath, then Centurion

$539Mto Wellpath, FY18–25

Care went to **Wellpath** in 2021, then to **Centurion** in 2024. Wellpath filed **Chapter 11 bankruptcy** in 2024 carrying ~$644M in debt, and watchdogs count roughly 1,395 lawsuits against it and its predecessors. Centurion then won the replacement contract with **no competitive bid** — see the number at the top of this page.

This is an industry with a documented, multi-state pattern of understaffing, delayed and denied care, and inmate-death litigation. Georgia bought into it at the moment its own prisons were under federal civil-rights scrutiny.

Sources: POGO and court records on Wellpath; Fulton County Superior Court (challenge dismissed); Open Georgia.

Channel 3

### The data the contractors lost

The money also bought a data-security failure to match the care record. The claims administrator **CorrectCare** exposed the records of about 600,000 incarcerated people in a 2022 breach, later settled for **$6.49 million**. The people whose medical histories leaked had no say in who held them.

Sources: HIPAA Journal / Prison Legal News on the CorrectCare breach and settlement.

[See the deaths we’ve tracked since 2020 →](/georgia-prison-deaths/)[How we verify →](/how-we-verify/)
Zoom out

## The same system, across our data

Every number below comes from GPS’s own databases — click through to the underlying data.

[1,848 deaths in GDC custody tracked by GPS since 2020 — the outcome all this healthcare money is supposed to prevent GPS Mortality Database (live count) See every death we track →](/georgia-prison-deaths/)
[$427M the FY2027 healthcare appropriation — about $8,067 per person in custody, still climbing after privatization FY 2027 Appropriations Act (HB 974) · GDC population report See the full budget analysis →](/gdc-budget/)
[216% of original design capacity, system-wide — overcrowding is the load this medical system runs under GDC architectural records · GPS analysis See the overcrowding data →](/warehouse/)
What the state won’t show

## The numbers we can’t see — and why

- How much of each contractor’s payment actually reaches patient care versus corporate overhead and profit — never broken out.
- The scoring and justification behind the no-bid Centurion award.
- Which specific deaths are tied to care delays under each contractor — GDC fee-loads the records that would show it.

We publish the verified figures and label the gaps. [How we verify →](/how-we-verify/)

## Georgia is paying more for prison healthcare than ever — to companies with the worst records in the field. The people who approve these contracts answer to you.

[Find your legislator](/find-your-legislator/)
[Back to Follow the Money](/follow-the-money/)

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