OPRA Monthly Meeting Tomorrow

Oregon Patients Rights Association Public Meeting tomorrow, Wednesday, May 8^th from 5 to 7 pm.  Rm 310 Douglas County Courthouse, Roseburg.  First half of the meeting is business, planning, and sharing: the second half patients’ rights education.   We will be discussing the merger of DCIPA (our local doctors group) and Mercy Medical Center via Architrave and the problems with the growing medical monopoly in our community.     

Although Mercy Medical Center is a non-profit hospital whose mission is to provide charity, their CEO was compensated almost $700,000 during 2011, while their medical charity work dropped by about 25%.   DCIPA is a private for profit entity who has been moving to monopolize health care in our community for some time.  They own the medical records company your doctor uses, as well as one of three general durable medical equipment companies, DMES (one of the other two is owned by Mercy –Parkway).  

Because they are now attempting to join forces in a new company called Architrave, the Insurance Commissioner for Oregon is soliciting public comment about allowing DCIPA to transfer its 1/3 ownership interest in ATRIO to Architrave.   ATRIO is a Medicare Advantage Plan contractor.