Numerous individuals are being informed that they will no longer receive care from a major Lane County healthcare provider that is owned by the contentious Optum Inc.
Patients are receiving letters from Oregon Medical Group informing them that their doctors have left the practice and that there aren’t enough other doctors available to fill the void.
After more than 20 years as a patient and Eugene resident, Tim Christie received the news on March 4 that his primary care physician was departing Oregon Medical Group. According to the medical practice, we were unable to move your treatment to another Oregon Medical Group physician at this time.
The message basically said, “Thanks for your patience, but you’re fired,” according to Christie. I was astounded.
It’s unclear how many patients have been fired from Oregon Medical Group as a result of the doctors quitting the business, but the organization is jettisoning patients. Optum, the parent firm of Oregon Medical Group, would not comment.
According to a written statement from Optum, “When a physician leaves, we notify the affected patients and try our best to transfer their care to other providers, as is the case throughout the healthcare industry.” Our patients’ health and well-being are our first priorities, and we are collaborating with them to make sure they can get high-quality care.
In the past two years, 32 physicians have departed Oregon Medical Group, according to the Lane area Medical Society, a professional association for area physicians. The loss of 32 patients might have a significant impact on the 2,800 patients that certain Oregon Medical Group physicians treat.
Optum is gaining thousands of new patients around the state, despite losing patients in Lane County. Optum and its parent company, UnitedHealth Group, have already changed the health care landscape in Oregon and across the country with their almost unquenchable thirst for acquiring businesses. Optum was trying to finalize a contract to acquire The Corvallis Clinic, another significant Oregon healthcare provider, even as the Oregon Medical Group was having difficulties.
Rep. Ben Bowman, D-Tigard, who introduced a bill in this year’s brief legislative session to limit what he called the corporatization of medicine, said the demise of the Oregon Medical Group under Optum is a warning story.
According to Bowman, access to treatment is frequently promised by large corporations and private equity investors who are acquiring physician offices throughout our state. However, the situation in Eugene is exactly the opposite: patients are left without access to care, and doctors are escaping.
Last week, Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene, went to Optum to get answers after hearing complaints from constituents. She was particularly interested in the number of remaining doctors and the number of patients being released.
“I have yet to receive those figures,” Nathanson stated. Essentially, we have a rising crisis in access to basic health care at a time when our local medical community is voicing anxiety and the number of patients without doctors could be in the thousands.
For over 36 years, Oregon Medical Group has been conducting business in Lane County. It became the second-largest medical practice in the area and was operated by a physician.
The pandemic of 2020 followed, which proved harsh for medical professionals on a number of levels. They were at extreme personal risk, and as a result of patients avoiding doctor’s offices, their non-COVID company crashed.
A large number of physicians, nurses, and other professionals retire or quit early. Profits at clinics and practices declined, and several sought ways to close their doors.
Optum’s acquisition of Oregon Medical Group was the tactic used in this instance. Late in 2020, the two businesses discreetly concluded the deal.
Optum has come under heavy fire from provider groups, labor unions, and academics for its unheard-of expansion strategy and ravenous thirst for fresh acquisitions in almost every area of healthcare.
Optum or its parent company, UnitedHealth Group, can choose which insurance plans to accept when they buy up clinics and medical practices, which could limit access to the most vulnerable patients on public insurance, according to Dr. John Santa, a retired physician and former member of the board that oversees the Oregon Health Authority.
Communities around the nation are incensed with UnitedHealth based on its performance history, Santa stated. Making money for their stockholders is their main objective.
A judge last year ordered UnitedHealth Group’s insurance division to pay $91.2 million to resolve allegations that it underpaid essential care providers at a medical group in Nashville. In an attempt to dominate healthcare in the area, a nonprofit organization of doctors’ offices and hospitals in California launched a lawsuit against Optum last year, alleging anticompetitive behavior, including a deliberate attempt to direct patients to Optum providers.
In Oregon, Optum has subtly established a significant foothold. Numerous clinics, hundreds of physicians, home health agencies, hospices, ambulatory surgery facilities, and mail-order pharmacies are all under the company’s jurisdiction. GreenField Health, an independent primary care firm with its headquarters in Portland, was acquired by Optum in 2021. The business purchased LHC Group, a hospice and home health care provider with nine facilities throughout Oregon, last year.
The Corvallis Clinic, which has 11 clinics serving patients in the Corvallis area and throughout parts of the Oregon coast, was most recently acquired by Optum. In order to avoid the state’s regulatory assessment, which was designed to stop corporate buyouts of physician practices from negatively impacting local access to healthcare, the proposed merger was allowed on an emergency basis. The Corvallis Clinic’s attorneys requested that the Oregon Health Authority approve the transaction right away, pointing out that the company was in severe financial trouble and would have to cease accepting patients.
The emergency permission coincided with a recent cyberattack on Change Healthcare, another UnitedHealth Group business, which stopped insurance payments to clinics nationwide.Due to their inability to receive payment for their services, health clinics throughout Oregon depleted their financial reserves. However, a large portion of the Corvallis Clinic’s petition to state authorities was redacted, so it’s unclear if the cyberattack had an effect.
About 24 months after Oregon Medical Group was acquired by Optum, Dr. Nick Jones departed the organization in October. According to Jones, working for Optum was a maddening combination of constant pressure to produce and bureaucratic paperwork. He treated around 2,800 individuals. Jones added that following the takeover, Optum started assigning doctors billing and code entry tasks, which he believed was a waste of our time.
According to Jones, it had to do with money. You had this ridiculous patient quota.
Since then, he has started his own practice.
According to Dr. Bruce Thomson, a retired doctor from Corvallis, his son is a patient at Oregon Medical Group, and Thomson frequently goes to his visits with him. He remembered a late February visit where a healthcare worker claimed to feel like a zombie.
These groups foster an environment that causes moral harm to healthcare professionals. Thomson stated, “It’s different from being burned out,” referring to the pressure to act contrary to one’s morals. He claimed that the moral harm arises when a corporate office employee instructs a medical practitioner on how to treat patients.
The 84-year-old Carl Carmichael had been a patient of Oregon Medical Group for many years. However, his primary care physician told him he was leaving in 2023. His replacement doctor quit the practice a few months later as well.
That s when Carmichael, a former university professor, got the letter: Oregon Medical Group said it didn t have anyone left to serve as his primary care physician.
The letter was signed not by an Oregon Medical Group executive, but by Imelda Dacones, market president of Optum Pacific Northwest.
The letter from Dacones stated, “I apologize for any loss and hardship this may cause.” I want you to know that we are committed to caring for our Eugene and Springfield communities in the long term.
Christie, the Eugene resident who learned this month he could no longer receive care from Oregon Medical Group, had been a patient there since he moved to the area in 2000. He liked and respected his primary care physician, Dr. Karl Saxman, who had helped Christie manage a chronic health problem.
But last fall, after a checkup appointment, Saxman told Christie that he was leaving. Saxman said another Oregon Medical Group doctor would take over for him.
The letter from Oregon Medical Group said otherwise.
We are working to build new services and rebuild our care teams to enhance our access and to better serve you and our community, it said.
But that rebuild will come too late for Christie, who would have to find another doctor elsewhere.
It s very disconcerting, he said. I just can t believe they ve put me in this position. What do I do now?
–Jeff Manningcovers business news. Reach him [email protected].
–Kristine de Leoncovers retail industry, small business and data enterprise stories. Reach her [email protected].
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