Four years ago Oregon launched major changes to its health care system. Those efforts have received a thumbs-up in Oregon Health Authority's first quarterly legislative report.
The state established 16 Coordinated Care Organizations, and it expanded Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of Oregonians under the Affordable Care Act.
Mark Fairbanks, the chief financial officer of the Oregon Health Authority, said the report shows the reforms improved health outcomes and contained costs.
“I think the report demonstrates we’ve laid a great foundation. We’ve achieved something that I think is very rare," he said. "And now the challenge is to take it to the next level.”
Oregon’s new Coordinated Care Organizations now have contracts that expire at the end of 2018.
The Oregon Health Policy Board is discussing its future in a series of public meetings across the state.
Oregon’s new system saved Medicaid more than $1 billion and kept cost growth down to 3.4 percent.