Pennsylvania County Renews $8 Million Contract with PrimeCare Despite Settlements
On December 30, 2025, Pennsylvania’s Centre County renewed its contract with PrimeCare Medical—a prison and jail healthcare profiteer—despite the dozens of lawsuits over substandard care that have been filed against it. The five-year contract will cost the County $8 million in total, or about $1.6 million per year, amounting to a 27% increase from the previous year. PrimeCare has been the contractor for the Centre County Correctional Facility since 2005.
Just in 2023, PrimeCare paid out at least $1.2 million to settle lawsuits from prisoners and detainees in Pennsylvania over the company’s failure to provide adequate healthcare. And that’s just what PLN has reported on from the handful of settlements that were unsealed; the actual figure is likely much higher, as the company has managed to keep their litigation payments confidential in many cases. [See: PLN, Mar. 2025, p. 51]. In one of the unsealed settlements, PrimeCare paid $1 million to the estate of Brittany Ann Harbaugh, 26, a detainee who died from an opiate withdrawal after being booked at the Bucks County Jail in 2018. Harbaugh did not see a doctor and did not receive detox medications, despite telling a PrimeCare nurse she was experience withdrawal symptoms.
In 2024, in a largely confidential settlement, Centre County itself agreed to pay $2.75 million to David B. Rossman, a detainee who alleged PrimeCare’s negligence left him paralyzed from the upper torso down.
Source: Centre Daily Times
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