TAMPA After nearly 10 years, the Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office is dropping the contractor that provides health-care services to jail inmates following in the footsteps of the Pinellas sheriff earlier this year.

Out is Armor Correctional Health Services, which had been treating sick and injured inmates for nine years under a contract that cost the jail about $20 million a year, and in is NaphCare, a company based in Birmingham, Alabama, that currently provides health care for prisoners in federal prisons, including one in Marianna, and about a dozen county jails, all outside Florida.

The contract award was announced Wednesday.

Seven health-care providers submitted bids for the job, including Armor, which was tarnished by a misdiagnosis two years ago that resulted in an inmates death and a settlement. The inmate had suffered a stroke that was not detected by an Armor nurse. The man died, resulting in a $1 million settlement for the family. Armor paid $800,000 and Hillsborough County the rest.

Armor ran into problems at the Pinellas County jail earlier this year. Whether the Hillsborough incident played into it or not, Pinellas jail officials terminated the contract with Armor in June, opting to take care of its own inmates and not give the health provider job to a private company.

NaphCare general counsel Brad Cain said a team is expected in Tampa on Thursday to iron out the details of its new contract with the sheriffs office and to meet with the current health-care staff, all of whom work for Armor until the end of the month.

The goal, he said, is to retain everyone on that medical staff.

We always like to keep the staff in place, Cain said Thursday afternoon. We will be meeting with them tomorrow and Friday.

He said he received notice Wednesday about winning the bid.

He said he couldnt discuss specifics of the contract until its finalized but described the fees as comparable to what Armor is charging, about $20 million a year.

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Sheriff drops jail health-care provider tied to inmate death