Willamette Week is in the middle of our most important annual fundraiser. As a local independent news outlet, we need your help.<\/p>\n
Give today. Hold power to account.<\/p>\n
Major contract negotiations between the Oregon Health Authority and local health departments continue to drag on, in part over counties\u2019 concerns that the state is pressuring them to take on far more responsibility\u2014and liability\u2014for people charged with crimes who must be \u201crestored\u201d to competency before they can stand trial. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt really is the state saying to counties, \u2018We no longer do behavioral health,\u2019\u201d Multnomah County Commissioner Meghan Moyer tells WW. \u201cLet\u2019s be real. If all we are doing is restoring somebody\u2014which, to be blunt, is forced medication and flash cards on basic court procedures like \u2018Who is a judge?\u2019 \u2018What does your lawyer do?\u2019\u2014it is not treatment.\u201d <\/p>\n
The dispute stems from an effort to revamp a major way the OHA partners with counties to fund and provide behavioral health care services like case management, substance use disorder treatment, and problem-gambling programs\u2014particularly when those services are not eligible for Medicaid dollars. <\/p>\n
The state has said its proposal would provide more funding stabillity to counties and set clear expectations to ensure transparency around funding and outcomes. <\/p>\n
With the state\u2019s latest target date for implementation, Jan. 1, approaching and various deadlines it once asserted now long past, the parties were in recent days still swapping contract proposals. <\/p>\n
Moyer says the OHA is playing a \u201cdivide and conquer game\u201d in its contract negotiations, intentionally leaving Multnomah and Marion Counties out of conversations. (\u201cI think that\u2019s because we have had our legal counsel the most dug in to these issues,\u201d she says.)<\/p>\n
OHA spokeswoman Kim Lippert says that negotiations are ongoing: \u201cWe have nothing more to share at this time, other than to say that Oregon Health Authority and county partners remain committed to the shared goal of ensuring access to behavioral health care to all people in Oregon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Counties sent OHA a \u201credline\u201d\u2014proposed contract edits\u2014Nov. 3, but didn\u2019t receive a response from OHA until Dec. 12, Multnomah County attorney Robert Sinnott said in one email obtained via a public records request. \u201cThe counties,\u201d the email said, \u201cimmediately evaluated that response and sent another redline back to OHA two days later.\u201d <\/p>\n
That day, Dec. 12, OHA Health Director Ebony Clarke sent county officials a link to the scheduling tool Doodle, to set the next meeting time. \u201cPlease note,\u201d she wrote, \u201cthat both Multnomah County and Marion County will be invited in the next round of discussions and are included on this email. We appreciate your partnership as we work toward getting a finalized agreement, given our shared goal of reaching an agreement soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Willamette Week is in the middle of our most important annual fundraiser. As a local independent news outlet,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-354576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}