Health

In change of plans, the Portland-based health insurance company say it would be closing down its Medicare Advantage line too after negotiations with a national big insurance company failed.

The vital psychiatric institution has churned through leaders in recent years.

The proposal, which is preliminary, comes as alarm bells clang over runaway medical inflation.

Research shows prices often go up when health systems consolidate. But the parties say the deal with bolster their operations for the long haul.

Board was supposed to deliver lawmakers material in September that would be grist for concrete, highly ambitious legislation. The delay reflects concerns that it has not yet accomplished this task.

The announcement on Friday said the retirement is also effective Friday.

Many more enforcement notices were pending. A spokesperson notes the complexity of the staffing requirements, and says the institution is working “in earnest” to get staffing plans approved.

From a recent wave of financial reports, a remarkable statistic stands out: In 2015, hospitals in Oregon reported spending just over $10 billion on their operations. A decade later, those expenses had more than doubled—to $22 billion.

After negotiations with the feds to turn the Oregon National Primate Research Center into a sanctuary came to naught, the new resolution envisions OHSU becoming a national leader in developing alternative models to animal-based research. Key details remain to be hashed out.

Lawmakers embraced Santiam Health’s narrative that it needs to rush a merger with far larger Salem Health to stave off financial ruin.

The Akawa Butte Fire near Sisters was, as of Friday, the highest priority in the nation for resource allocation.

OHSU is pushing a vision in which the center would largely pivot to animal research alternatives. And—rather then becoming a monkey sanctuary itself—it would send many, though not all, of its monkeys to sanctuaries elsewhere.