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 August Rural hospitals, drugs drive up Oregon Health Plan The Oregon Health Plan faces a tough financial road in the 1999 legislature Sen. Neil Bryant (R-Bend) has been given the enviable task of coming up with a budget that will, in all likelihood, differ sharply from Gov. John Kitzhaber's. Last fall, Senate President Brady Adams (R-Grants Pass) decided the legislature should produce its own budget. That scenario is being played out as Bryant, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, wrestles with the Oregon Health Plan. Budget cuts are definitely on Bryant's mind. "We can't continue the same level of services for the Oregon Health Plan. The way the health plan initially was set up was to lower the benefits line. We don't have the legislative will to do that because we'd be cutting into basic health services." Should Oregon's non-profit hospitals pay taxes? Oregon's non-profit hospitals have improved their bottom line as a result of the Oregon Health Plan. So shouldn't they make a bigger contribution, particularly for those who fall through the cracks? It's become apparent that OHP's percent-of-charges reimbursement system has tilted the plan's spending toward hospitals. An analysis of Portland health care consultant Joseph J. Henery showed that, by 1995, the percentages of OHP funds going to hospitals and physicians was the reverse of the spending pattern in commerical health plans Under commercial plans, hospitals received 34.6% of funds and physicians 47.8%, the Henery analysis showed. But under OHP, the hospitals received 49.5% and physicians 35.9%. Henery's report blamed the practice of paying hospitals on a discounted fee-for-service basis, allowing them to increase their revenue by merely raising charges. HMO Oregon faces tug of war with pediatricians. Pediatiricians are squawking over Regence HMO Oregon's elimination of a dedicated fund for preventive services. They say the increased cost of giving children immunizations, coupled with the removal of this fund, means doctors will suffer a loss. "Physicians should not be put at risk for immunizing children," said Connie DiStefano, administrator of Children's Clinic. "There is general concern among primary care physicians, especially pediatricians, because so much of what pediatricians do is completely preventive." Doctors are getting hit financially for utilization they can't reduce, pediatricians argue. Mutiny Threatens Morrow County In an age of corporate mergers and strategic alliances, Morrow County is a surprising anomaly. There, citizens of the county health district's northern region are threatening to withdraw and form a separate taxpayer-subsidized health system. If they succeed, Morrow county will set a precedent as the first region to secede from an Oregon health service district. Other headlines
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