When health system executives tout the benefits of acquiring hospitals or physician groups, they often say the combined entity will benefit consumers and insurers by improving health care quality and reducing costs.
The committee is considering three bills aimed at tackling one of the biggest cost drivers in medicine today -- outrageously priced biological wonder drugs. One bill would prevent health insurers from gouging consumers who need these medications. A second bill would require pharmaceuticals to report their profit information to the Oregon Health Authority. The third bill would free pharmacists to dispense FDA-approved biosimilars without special state barriers.
Three laws brought by a group of citizens who lost loved ones to suicide are aimed at nudging hospitals to provide better communication to family members when patients leave the hospital, and requires hospitals to link them with case management and outpatient services.
In bizarre twist, PeaceHealth Medical Group comes back to the negotiating table, announces new hires and changes to management of the physicians, who say they are severely understaffed, overworked, and frustrated.
Kent L. Thornburg, a pioneer in the field of epigenetics at the Knight Cardiovascular Institute at Oregon Health & Science University, told the Oregon Women’s Health Network at the kickoff of its 2015 lecture series “it is likely most chronic disease can disappear over time”
Late last year, Silverton was on the move to affiliate with Providence but pressure by community members and physicians about the influence of the Catholic Church ended those discussions.
