The latest campaign appears to be at Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, one of the largest providers of mental health services to Medicaid clients in Oregon.
After reports surfaced about the lack of follow-up on reports of abuse at the Unity Center for Behavioral Health in Northeast Portland, a top-level county manager takes action.
Aug 20, 2018
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Unity Center for Behavioral Health in Portland.
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LEGACY HEALTH
Only walk-ins are accepted while the Oregon Health Authority investigates the center, which has been plagued with problems since opening a year and a half ago.
People sent to the hospital to be treated after they are arrested for crimes has been a serious problem in Oregon for several years, but while Marion and Multnomah County have made progress, other counties, especially Coos, continue to send more than their share out of their community to the high-cost Oregon State Hospital.
At a time when a third of Oregon prisoners have mental health needs, activists and leaders are looking at alternatives to jail for intervention and treatment for serious mental illness.
A separate bill from Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer would require CCOs and insurers to cover a behavioral health assessment in a crisis as well as its treatment recommendations.
Psychiatric medications are carved out of the purview of the CCOs, limiting their ability to fully integrate mental healthcare. The organizations have tried repeatedly to remove this restriction, and this year the state will require them to allow any patient to stay on their preferred medication.
The House Health Committee is pushing two simple but possibly life-changing bills for the state’s neediest residents, allowing homeless people to get free copies of their birth certificates and steering Oregon State Hospital officials to sign up patients for federal assistance as they leave the mental hospital.
