Gov. Tina Kotek and Oregon House Speaker Julie Fahey met with PeaceHealth administrators in a call last week to talk about the provider’s plans to transition to a new out-of-state company to provide emergency department services at Lane County hospitals.
By then, the governor and Fahey, an influential Democratic lawmaker from Eugene, had already pushed hard for PeaceHealth to reconsider its plans to end its decades-long relationship with Eugene Emergency Physicians in favor of Georgia-based ApolloMD and its new affiliated group, Lane Emergency Physicians.
At that April 29 meeting, the two officials asked PeaceHealth’s CEO, Sarah Ness, to make “tangible progress,” by Friday, May 8, the governor’s office said. The officials also laid out concerns about the lack of transparency around the decision and the risk of inadequate emergency department staffing at Lane County hospitals. They asked, once again, for PeaceHealth to reverse its decision and avoid additional disruptions to the region’s frayed health care system…