A closely watched legal fight over who controls emergency room care in Lane County is shaping up to be the first major test of the nation’s toughest law limiting corporate influence in medicine — and the stakes are high for patients and the future of physician staffing across Oregon.
In federal court in Eugene on Monday, lawyers squared off over PeaceHealth’s plan to overhaul emergency services at its Lane County hospitals.
The change would replace Eugene Emergency Physicians — a local group that has staffed PeaceHealth’s three Oregon ERs for over 35 years — with a new setup involving out-of-state ApolloMD. The move has drawn pushback from many of the hospital’s current doctors, lawmakers and others in the community…