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In January, members of CareOregon’s community advisory group detailed frustrations in a letter.
CareOregon manages Oregon Health Plan benefits for hundreds of thousands of Portland-area residents and the insurer’s abrupt decision last year to rapidly restrict member access to a wide swath of therapists had been done, the letter said, without any meaningful consultation with the board.
“This omission represents a significant breakdown in trust and process,” the letter said. “As an advisory body, we should not be learning about decisions of this magnitude after the fact—particularly when those decisions disrupt care for tens of thousands of people."
It was part of a broader pattern in which members of the board—which has existed for more than a decade and comprises CareOregon members and other community representatives—felt increasingly sidelined from serious decisions.
Then, last month the advisory board received further unwelcome news: It was being eliminated altogether.
The board was invited to a “final gathering” at CareOregon headquarters downtown late last month “to share a meal, celebrate the contributions and accomplishments of the group, and reflect on the impact you have had.”
Board co-chair Sabina Urdes was unimpressed. “I can’t speak to their motives, but myself and others are just struggling to understand the timing,” she tells WW. “We raised some concerns. We asked to be consulted. And then shortly afterwards the board was dissolved. That sequence raises some questions.”
CareOregon, for its part, responds that “sunsetting this iteration” of the advisory board was not a punitive action, but rather part of a broader effort to streamline community engagement, avoid duplication, and more clearly define pathways for community input, which, by contract, it already gets through other channels.
The two coordinated care organizations it CareOregon runs elsewhere in Oregon still have community advisory groups of their own—a requirement for CCOs.
But in the Portland area, CareOregon is not a technically a CCO, but rather the largest subcontractor of one, Health Share of Oregon, which, CareOregon points out, continues run a community advisory group.
