Oregons Health Care Cost Growth Target Program

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ISBN 13 :
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Download or read book Prioritization of Health Services written by and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An increasing number of Oregonians are not receiving adequate health care. In 1989, the Oregon legislature passed a comprehensive program to address the problem. The goal of the Oregon Plan is good health. The cornerstone of the Oregon Plan is a publicly defined, standard package of effective health care offered to all Oregonians at an affordable price. Oregon acknowledges that all medical procedures are not equally valuable or effective. Therefore, in order to define an affordable, quality health care package, the state has to determine first which services are most beneficial. The Legislature created the Health Services Commission to rank all health care services according to their importance to the entire population. The commissioners produced a list of 709 items defined in condition/treatment pairs. They said a treatment's effectiveness is determined only when linked to a condition. They then assigned the pairs to 17 categories of care. After ordering the categories, Commissioners then ranked the pairs within the categories. Commissioners say every person is entitled to a diagnosis as part of the Standard Benefit Package. Once that diagnosis is made, then coverage for a person's treatment is determined by its position on the list. Preventive care is ranked high on the list, especially for children. Comfort care ranks high and includes medications and services to reduce pain, home health and hospice care for the terminally ill. Independent actuaries determined the costs of providing the services to the Medicaid population.