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MRI technician Helen Cryan gets Retta Jacobi ready for her scan inside a mobile imaging semitrailer at Southwest Healthcare Services in Bowman, North Dakota, with the help of the truck’s driver, Kevin Kraft, who also works as a medical assistant. | ARIELLE ZIONTS/KFF HEALTH NEWS

Instead of selling, some rural hospitals band together to survive

Sharing the cost of a mobile MRI machine, for example, helps rural hospitals avoid selling out to larger partners — or closing

Sep 9, 2025

Rep. Cyrus Javadi speaking on the floor of the Oregon House in 2025 | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Q&A: Rep. Cyrus Javadi, a health care player in Salem, changes parties

The Tillamook dentist, who faced an uprising in his own party over some of his votes, is now a Democrat. He says the change won’t alter his focus on the health of Oregon’s health care system.

Sep 9, 2025
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Rachel Solotaroff at Portland's Old Town Clinic. | COURTESY CENTRAL CITY CONCERN

Health system serving 1 million low-income Oregonians faces emergency surgery

After failing to budget for massive hikes in underlying costs, state officials are scrambling to tweak and trim the Oregon Health Plan to keep its nationally known Medicaid-funded managed care system intact. Failure could mean problems for patients and higher costs for the state.

Sep 4, 2025
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St. Charles Health System is acquring Prineville's Clinic Pharmacy, with the transition taking effect this fall. | JASON CHANEY/CENTRAL OREGONIAN

St. Charles acquiring Prineville pharmacy

This is the second community pharmacy St. Charles has opened this year, after opening a pharmacy in Madras in June.

Sep 4, 2025
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LUND REPORT ILLUSTRATION/SHUTTERSTOCK/PIXABAY

Fighting a health insurance denial? Here are seven tips to help.

The good news is that most appeals are at least partly successful, and you don't need to be an insurance expert to get results

Sep 4, 2025

Ozempic insulin injection pen. | NATALIA VARLEI/SHUTTERSTOCK

As insurers struggle with GLP-1 drug costs, some seek to wean patients off

'You could either spend it on fewer people for a long period of time, or you can spend it on a lot more people for a shorter period of time.'

Sep 4, 2025

Portland Police officers use a fentanyl test kit during an arrest for drug possession in downtown Portland, Sept. 10, 2024. This woman was one of roughly 70 people who have been deflected in Multnomah County since Oregon recriminalized drug possession. | KRISTYNA WENTZ-GRAFF / OPB

One year in, Oregon’s efforts to curb drug use are still a work in progress

During the past year, more than 1,300 people entered a deflection program. Roughly 48% didn’t complete it. The remainder either did or are currently enrolled.

Sep 4, 2025

Letter to Samaritan Health Plan holders in September 2025

Samaritan Health Plans sent this letter to 13,881 Medicare Advantage members in Lincoln, Benton and Linn counties – including 4,964 in Lincoln County. | QUINTON SMITH/LINCOLN CHRONICLE

Samaritan dropping Medicare Advantage plans at end of year

In a letter received by its Advantage clients over the Labor Day weekend, Samaritan did not divulge its reasons for the change

Sep 4, 2025

HATICE EROL/PIXABAY

Hawaii joins Oregon, Washington and California in split with Trump administration over vaccines

The Western states plan to counter controversial recommendations issued by the federal government under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who is now leading the federal health bureaucracy

Sep 3, 2025
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SHUTTERSTOCK

Input sought: Can Oregon’s health care merger watchdog do better?

Public comments will be accepted online and in virtual meetings this month as state volunteers take a look at how an increasingly high-profile office tries to protect against any harmful effects from health care mergers

Sep 2, 2025
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