Medical & Mental Health in North Carolina (NCDAC)
How health care works in North Carolina prisons — in-house NCDAC Health Services, sick-call co-pays, mental-health care, and the grievance process.
Health care in North Carolina prisons
Unlike many states that hire a private prison-health company, North Carolina delivers care in-house through NCDAC Health Services, the medical division of the Department of Adult Correction. The division provides medical, dental, and behavioral-health care across the prison system using its own staff. There is no named for-profit statewide contractor.
Two co-pays apply. An offender-initiated sick-call request costs $5.00, and a self-declared “emergency” that is later judged not to be an emergency carries a $7.00 charge. Care ordered by staff and treatment of a genuine emergency are free, and a co-pay is not a condition of receiving necessary care. Confirm the current charges, any exemptions, and how to submit a sick-call request with the facility’s health services unit.
Inpatient and mental-health care
Routine and lower-acuity care is delivered at each prison’s on-site clinic. Higher-acuity inpatient care is centralized at two complexes:
- The Central Prison Healthcare Complex in Raleigh is the system’s inpatient and mental-health hub for men, providing hospital-level medical care and acute mental-health treatment.
- The NCCIW Healthcare Complex, at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh, is the corresponding medical and mental-health hub for women.
Mental-health and substance-use services are provided in-house as part of NCDAC Health Services, ranging from clinic-based care at individual prisons to the inpatient mental-health units at the two complexes above.
The grievance process
A health or treatment concern that cannot be resolved with the facility’s health services unit can be raised through the Administrative Remedy Procedure (ARP), NCDAC’s formal grievance system. The procedure has internal review steps within the prison and the department.
A grievance that is not resolved internally can be appealed to the Inmate Grievance Resolution Board (IGRB), an independent board that reviews final grievance appeals. North Carolina does not have a separate independent corrections ombudsman; the IGRB is the route for an independent review of a grievance.
Verify Before Acting
Sources
This page is compiled from the following publicly available sources. Policies change without notice — confirm current details with the facility before relying on them.