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 January Lane County gets stung by the Oregon Health Plan The Oregon Health Plan is having a chilling effect on Lane County's ability to help children combat mental illness. Its annual budget dipped from $6 million to $2.8 million in November, said Bruce Abel, manager of Lane Care. Before the Oregon Health Plan, there were enough resources to help 19 percent of all children; the new rates are based on 9 percent penetration. Day treatment, sex offender treatment, intensive services, foster care and school-based therapy are feeling the pinch. "We never dreamed we'd see such drastic budget cuts," Abel said. "In the end, children will suffer." SUMMARY: Lane County's experiences could be a pre-cursor to the financial problems counties will have as mental health is fully integrated into the Oregon Health Plan. Some are questioning whether managed care makes sense in the mental health system. Wager between counties, health plans comes down to money Bill Garrard's on a crusade to break the antagonism between Klamath County and Cascade Comprehensive Care over mental health. As a Klamath County commissioner, he's spearheading the attempt. "I'm concerned indigent clients might slip through the cracks in a privately-run system." This is another example of counties and private health plans at odds over mental health services. The private sector is eager to take over mental health, but the counties feel they are ultimately accountable for caring for the severely mentall ill. Also, counties are worried about losing revenue that helps them provide a wide range of services. The Oregon Health Plan Policy and Research office is trying to create standards for all providers that will ensure quality care, not profits, comes first. Bowling: "We shouldn't be carted around by someone's pet pig." Q: "The buzzword around town is mental health parity. I thought the feds took care of that." A: "Clearly the existing federal statute on parity is a joke and was designed as a political device to placate the advocates. We've been accused of finding a loophole. We didn't find it. The loophole's as big as a tunnel with neon signs." Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon is increasing its stake in Oregon's mental health services market. It has close ties with Green Spring Health Services, which owns local provider CERES Behavioral Health, and it's buying Behavioral Health Services. Almost 200,000 people in the Portland area will fall under this umbrella for mental health services. OHF editor Diane Lund talked to Regence's Cindy Bowling about the merger and a host of hot mental health issues. Managed care will revolutionize long-term care industry The evolution of managed care in Oregon and Washington has seen a grab bag of independent interests steadily consolidating into interdependent networks aimed at taming the twin beasts of access and cost. An outlier in all this integration, however, has been the long-term care industry -- the nursing homes where the frail and disabled elderly sometimes end their days at public expense. Long-term care is approaching managed care on several fronts. The state has applied for a grant to study how to coordinate acute and long-term care, and private providers have started organizing into statewide groups that eventually will contract with health plans. Why the rush? The population is aging, costs are rising and both Medicare and Medicaid are going to modernize how they reimburse for long-term care. Other headlines
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