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 June Legacy takes lucrative option from OptionCare As Legacy Health System prepares to open its multi-million dollar hospital in Salmon Creek later this summer, it’s found a new source of revenue. Legacy is selling its home care services to a for-profit, publicly traded company, OptionCare and also entering into a joint venture within the firm to handle home infusion. According to sources close to Oregon Health News, Legacy could reap $20 million from the sale. The transaction takes effect Aug. 15. It’s unknown whether any Legacy employees will lose their jobs once OptionCare takes over. The national company, based in Illinois, specializes in home infusion and high-tech pharmacy. On June 14, its stock closed at $14.37. Legacy’s hospice services in McMinnville and Portland will not be impacted by the transaction. Until now, Legacy’s Visiting Nurses Program, which has a 103-year history, has run home health services. Announcing the decision, Barbara Zappas, senior vice president of clinical operations, told her staff in a memo on June 13, she had “mixed emotions” about the transaction. State airballs reshoot It’s known as the re-shoot, but it may as well be known as the re-oops. State officials underestimated how much money they’d need for the 2005-07 budget proposed by the governor for the Department of Human Services by $66.2 million. Throw in a few other curveballs headed the state’s way and the tab could reach over $100 million. That puts legislators in the unenviable position of cutting programs that are already bleeding from previous rounds of slashing or finding new revenue such as reinstating the 10 cent tobacco tax. Bye bye Barney Opportunity beckoned. That’s the reason Barney Speight’s giving up his job as Oregon’s Medicaid administrator barely seven months after stepping into the role. Money didn’t enter into the transaction. Speight said he’ll only earn slightly more as deputy director of the Washington State Health Care Authority. Since his first entry into health policy, in 1978, working for the Oregon Medical Association, he’s been a sought after commodity, having held high profile jobs in the private and public sectors. Leaving Oregon wasn’t a decision he made lightly, Speight said, and the changing leadership at the Department of Human Services, with its director, Gary Weeks, having moved to Washington, wasn’t a factor either. In fact, Weeks never approached him about the open position. Instead he heard about the job from a mutual friend. Funding rural health One percent may not sound like a lot of cash, but when you’re talking about 1 percent of $360 million, that’s a big pile of money. In fact, it’s enough to establish a rural safety net for Oregonians. That’s exactly what Ed Patterson, executive director of the Oregon Rural Health Association, wants to do with it. With all the hands clamoring for state dollars, however, the bill (Senate Bill 778) may not even make it to a floor vote. The $360 million comes from tobacco taxes and the tobacco settlement with 53 percent going toward the Oregon Health Plan and 26 percent the general fund. The 1 percent Patterson seeks is “not much money by comparison,” he said. Unpaid holidays Forget about the free cruises, trips to the Bahamas and golf vacations. Agents in Oregon who receive compensation from insurance companies and consumers on the same transaction must now tell their customers in advance. As a result of the ongoing investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer into underhanded dealings at Marsh, Oregon’s insurance administrator decided to tighten the screws on compensation arrangements in the Beaver state. On the record with Rep. Billy Dalto Rep. Billy Dalto (R–Salem) may only represent 57,000 Oregonians, but if all goes as planned he’ll soon have the attention of every voter in the state. As chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee, he’s drafting a referendum to reform the Oregon Health Plan that could appear on the Nov. 2006 ballot. Dalto spoke by phone with Associate Editor Matthew Kish about his referendum, mental health parity, expanding the bulk purchasing pool and mandates. OHN: What would you like to see happen to the Oregon Health Plan? BD: The health plan should be limited to a basic program. Beyond that, we ought to consider the expansion of FHIAP to make sure more people who are uninsured get access to needed health care. Junk food prevails Little Debbies, Ho Hos and Twinkies will still be on the lunch menu in Oregon schools next year. After months of lobbying, Senate Bill 860, which started as an attempt to limit junk food options in schools, gave up the ghost in the House Business, Labor and Consumer Affairs Committee. “It’s dead,” said Mary Lou Hennrich, executive director of the Community Health Partnership. “Oregon missed a great opportunity.” Torts over tort reform It’s like planning a party and then not getting invited to the actual celebration. Sen. Alan Bates (D–Ashland) spent the past five months rallying support for a tort reform package that would include a professional liability fund for physicians and a screening panel for lawsuits. Despite the elaborate planning and closed-door meetings that went into Senate Bill 446, Bates won’t support the legislation if it makes it out of the Senate Rules Committee. “They are going to run a bill out which will be one I probably won’t vote for,” Bates said. A not so clear picture Advocates who wanted the legislature to pass a transparency bill aren’t going to get quite what they wanted. What they’ll likely get is more like a translucency bill. Senate Bill 1040 started as a six-page proposal to make the Office for Oregon Health Policy and Research a “statewide data clearinghouse” for “the acquisition, compilation, correlation and dissemination of data from health care providers.” It targeted “state and local agencies including the state Medicaid program, third-party payers and other appropriate sources.” Union bills dashed To be continued. Those are the words on the lips of advocates as a protracted struggle to pass a series of cost-savings bills has apparently ended with only one even making it out of committee. Senate Bills 501 to 504 would have, respectively, required more transparency from health insurers, created a rate-setting system for hospitals, strengthened the certificate of need process and mandated specific levels of charity care. Only SB 501 appears to have any future, and the odds of it passing remain long. Also in this issue...
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