mental health

May 9, 2012 -- FolkTime, a 26-year-old nonprofit providing community socialization for people with mental illness, has just signed a contract with Clackamas Behavioral Health to start providing peer support services – including job coaching, arts activities and support groups – to veterans with mental health challenges.   Read More >>

April 25, 2012 – Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon's decision to slash mental health benefits and impose a much higher deductible for medical care and prescription coverage has consumer advocates upset. About 30,000 Oregonians  who have individual policies will feel the impact starting October 1.  Read More >>

March 24, 2012—A quick, 15-minute appointment with a mental health counselor to talk about the effects of stress and anxiety when a person has an ulcer is radically different than a traditional hour long appointment with a counselor. But providers in southern Oregon are discovering that such appointments, which integrate mental healthcare in the same primary care setting, go a long way toward improving a patient’s health. Read More >>

March 12, 2012—A bill that would have required the state to continue paying for drugs used for mental illnesses, HIV/AIDS, cancer, and immunosuppressant drugs until 2016 died in the last days of the Legislature, blocked by the House and facing a veto threat from Governor Kitzhaber. Read More >>

March 1, 2012—By July, the Oregon Health Authority is expected to begin providing real-time data to the Central Oregon Health Council, which coordinates the care of Oregon Health Plan patients in Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties, on the mental health drugs used by people living in that area. Read More >>

February 6, 2012—The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Healthcare and its executive director Gina Nikkel are off to a running start, funding its first projects that Nikkel hopes will begin creating a more holistic understanding and way of treating mental illness. Read More >>

  December 2, 2011 -- When Central City Concern opens its downtown clinic on December 12, teams of doctors and alternative medicine professionals will help hundreds of people whose drug addictions or mental illnesses threaten to keep them on the streets. Read More >>

November 23, 2011—With some kinks fixed and recalculations made, a new formula defining the amount of funding each county receives for mental health programs is here to stay, said Richard Harris, the director of the Oregon Health Authority’s Addictions and Mental Health division. Read More >>

November 21, 2011—A mental health organization is leading the charge toward transformation. Greater Oregon Behavioral Healthcare, Inc., (GOBHI), based in The Dalles, is in active discussions with a multitude of healthcare providers to become a coordinated care organization (CCO) by next July. Read More >>

September 15, 2011—Multnomah County’s Board of Commissioners voted this morning to use $8 million of its one-time only money, general fund reserves and Verity funds to make up $12.4 million in state cuts affecting the county's safety net services. Read More >>