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MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. Today's show is in many ways, an indication that good old-fashioned journalism is still very much in play in our community. As you'll hear, the content of the next half hour is just a good example of local reporters doing their job to both find and then flesh out the issues and happenings that are important to the people in our region. First up, we're going to talk with our reporter Nathan Wile, who helped uncover a disturbing incident at White Bird clinic, and what it might mean for the organization going forward. Then our other reporter, Rebecca Hansen-White breaks down the retreat of PacificSource in Lane County, and the impact that could have on 10s of 1000s of people in the region. In spite of the challenges that journalism faces, journalists are still out there doing the work. Nathan Wilk, reporter with KLCC, thanks so much for coming in and talking to us.
NATHAN WILK: Thanks for having me. Michael.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You really broke this story about a settlement between White Bird clinic and a former CAHOOTS employee. What'd you find?
NATHAN WILK: Absolutely Michael. First, I want to give a shout out to my colleague Rebecca Hansen-White, who actually found this lawsuit for us. What we found is that White Bird clinic had been sued by a former Cahoots medic who alleged retaliation and discrimination in the workplace. And we also found that there was a settlement. We reached out to the plaintiff as a lawyer in this case, and they said they got $600,000 as part of that settlement.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, any insight into what the person you know said happened beyond just some of the wording that you just used, there?
NATHAN WILK: Absolutely. So, the claim was that this person had a coworker who sexually assaulted them, physically assaulted them, and was also inappropriate with clients. One of the claims made in the lawsuit is that this coworker said they wanted to have sex with an underage client who they were working with. And then when this coworker tried to shift their hours to avoid this person, their alleged abuser, you know, they said their hours were cut while their coworkers were not. And then when they tried to report it that they were retaliated against, that they were, in essence, pushed out of the job, and those findings were supported by the Bureau of Labor and Industries, which investigated this and found harassment and retaliation and things like that.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Has White Bird made any public comments about this situation, about the settlement?
NATHAN WILK: I reached out to White Bird after finding this lawsuit, and while they didn't give me a lot of details on this specific case, you know, they did say that they wanted their organization to be, you know, a safe and welcoming workplace. And this comes from Amy Marquart, who's the new executive director, who was not in that position at the time, that sure that this all happened. The other thing I reached out for with them, that I wanted to know was whether this person, who was accused in the lawsuit of engaging in this inappropriate behavior was still working at White Bird. Now they didn't immediately confirm that. They couldn't say whether they said, you know, they couldn't speak on personnel issues of that kind. It's worth noting, of course, that Cahoots, this program, you know, staffing has been reduced as they've closed down in Eugene, although they're still operating in Springfield.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I should ask you about what was the timeframe that these incidents occurred?
NATHAN WILK: So, the person said they were hired in 2020 the you know, the incidents occurred throughout 2021, and 2022 and then in March of 2023 they left their position saying, basically, it was such a hostile and untenable workplace.
MICHAEL DUNNE: As you mentioned, CAHOOTS no longer operates in Eugene. You know, it's gone through a lot of fiscal hardship. Is there any linkage between a payout like this or in regards to investigations and them having to discontinue service in Eugene?
NATHAN WILK: So potentially and potentially not this lawsuit, this settlement, came in July of this year, so after Cahoots shut down, but it is worth mentioning. Mentioning that in an interview with the Eugene weekly last year, I believe, former executive director of White Bird, Jeremy Gates, he cited that there were $2.7 million in payouts from four separate lawsuits. Now that article did not say, and we haven't been able to determine yet whether those were all of this nature or of something else, but, but certainly, you know, White Bird leadership in the past, has mentioned some of its legal issues as part of the contributors to CAHOOTS shutting down.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And so as best you can, can you sort of take us through at a high level how this investigation played out? This employee alleges these things happened. Did they go to HR? Kind of, as best you can tell, did White Bird take it seriously?
NATHAN WILK: So, there's a couple pieces to that in the lawsuit. You know. The first is they say that when they tried to report this to coworkers, including their supervisor. You know that they were brushed off, that the conversations were shut down. They claimed that they reported it to HR, and it went nowhere, and then they reported it again to HR, when there was a relatively new head of that department, and that led to some sort of action, some sort of conversation around it. This person, who it was accused of, was placed on administrative leave with pay. You know lawyers for who are working with White Bird, one in particular, said in emails that I obtained through a BOLI investigation, you know that they believe this conduct, this misconduct by this person, had been going on for a long time, and nothing had been done about it, or very little had been done about it, rather. And so that person was placed on administrative leave, but they were returned. It says about mid-2023, according to legal filings, because in one lawyer's estimation, there was no hard evidence. And you know, while that was going on, the employee who is now accusing, or has now accused White Bird of retaliation. You know, they said that they, you know, were being pushed out. And there's emails that show that the HR staff were discussing offering them severance and trying to get them to leave their post.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I might have missed this but, but I just kind of wanted to bring it back a little bit in terms of, was there any indication from White Bird that they had received similar complaints against the employee that has been identified as being the alleged perpetrator. Was there any evidence that, oh, this person's been doing this previously?
NATHAN WILK: Well, the timeline is a little complicated there, but there are other allegations against this specific person, another person, it's brought up in the bully investigation, had accused this person of urinating in a cup in front of them on a shift, and in that process, exposing themselves and so there is some indication around that, and that was ongoing through throughout this process. I think 2022 is when some of the documentation was sent over to White Bird regarding that incident.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, Nathan, my last question for you is, does it end here, or do you think that there could be more shoes to drop, or now that this settlement has occurred, is it kind of at an end point, as best you can tell?
NATHAN WILK: Well, what I'll say is that we're going to keep covering this, this story. You know, there is at least one other publicly available lawsuit against White Bird from a former employee around these, these, this same world. And so, you know, we're going to continue to look into this and know these potential issues at White Bird and other organizations as well.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well, at the risk of editorializing without your work and without Rebecca's work, you know, stories like this wouldn't be uncovered. So great job to both of you. Nathan Wilk, our reporter here at KLCC, thank you so much for coming in and chatting with us.
NATHAN WILK: Thanks for having me, Michael.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Let's now talk with Rebecca Hansen-White and her coverage of PacificSource. Rebecca Hansen-White, always great to see you down in the studio. How are you?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: I'm doing very well.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I really appreciate you coming in. And it was interesting talking to Nathan about his story about White Bird. One of the things he mentioned was that you found the initial document. Can you kind of take us through that process of how you found the document, about the settlement that they offered up?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: I mean, I for fun, but also for work. I just love looking at government documents. I spent a lot of quality time on this website called court listener, which is from the free Law Project. And basically, what it does is, in America, unfortunately, you have to pay for court records. You have to have an account with this website called Pacer. That's a government website that costs a lot of money, if you like, to look at court documents as much as I do, it would really add up. And so, what I use frequently to just look at court cases and different, you know, rulings for fun, is to have an account on court listener, and I set up alerts for my favorite cases. I also sometimes just like to look around to see what is happening in district court. In federal district court, okay? And I had noticed, as I was looking around for a different federal case that I was having a hard time finding that White Bird actually has been in federal court before for federal discrimination issues. And so, pass that on to Nathan, because I know about the work that he's been doing on White Bird, and thought, you know, he is the one who's been telling that story and should continue to do it. And, you know, I shouldn't get every federal court story because I'm a little creep!
MICHAEL DUNNE: But it goes to the point though, that obviously, you know, a lot of times, I mean, stories most times, don't fall into your lap. You really have to do a lot of searching and internet sleuthing to be able to find out what's going on.
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Yeah, I think that there is so many good and interesting stories out there that sometimes that's just, you know, for the three full time and part time people in our host, there's more stories than I think even sometimes we can handle, sure, and so I think we try to collaborate and share and, you know, use our different talents and skills to make each other better and to really grow our newsroom and share our resources. So, I try to do what I can to help everybody get the story at the end of the day absolutely well.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And certainly, one of the kinds of the real beats you've carved out is healthcare, because that's such a huge issue, and of course, ancillary to that is health insurance and so on and so forth. So, you've been following this story for a while now about PacificSource, remind our listeners you've done you've done news stories on this, but just remind people what has been going on with PacificSource and where that stands right now.
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Yeah, so PacificSource is one of two insurers that provides Medicaid through the Oregon Health Plan to people in Lane County. They and Trillium both offer Medicaid in Lane County, and so a lot of Medicaid providers have been having some financial challenges with, even before the current era in federal cuts to health care, it's been tough to be on Medicaid with, with the reimbursement rates, with finding providers that will take it, and that a lot of providers have been struggling with losses. And so, the state sets rates, and earlier in the process of rate setting, the Lund report actually broke that they're a health care outlet. They had found out that PacificSource had indicated that it might pull out of Lane County and not serve the 90,000 people that it has been serving since, I believe, 2020 because of the financial challenges of continuing to do that in the current environment. And so, they made that announcement in September, then there were negotiations, conversations that happened, and then they made the decision, and they told OHA that they would be leaving. And so that put OHA in the decision, in the chair to figure out someone else to provide Medicaid in Lane County. And so, they had to choose between the existing, other company that does it to expand their role in this community, and that was Trillium. And that was Trillium, right? Or they had to decide whether to do an open process and invite other companies to make a bid to serve labor County. And so, because of the time constraints, they decided to go with Trillium. And but they decided, instead of January, to try to push the transition to February, so it's kind of where we're at right now.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, and looking at your story as I understand it, PacificSource is still going to serve patients in other counties. It's Lane County specifically that they're leaving, because I think they're still going to provide services in Deschutes, is that correct?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Pacific Source still exists. It's still an insurer. It's Lane County, Medicaid patients that it can't afford, so they still, you know, if you have PacificSource and you live outside of Lane County, you know you, you, that does not mean you're losing your health care or anything. Okay, you know you. It's Lane County people who are affected by this.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Okay, a question someone listening to this might, might consider is, well, gosh, could the same thing happen to Trillium that happened at PacificSource? I mean, what's to stop Trillium from saying, Gosh, you know what? I can't afford it either.
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Well, I think it's too late for this year. Okay, so maybe that's good news, at least in the short term. Yeah, they've, they've, what they've said is they have made some public statements about this. I think that some of the concerns about Trillium is, you know, these are two different companies, PacificSource and Trillium. PacificSource was a Springfield based company, and Trillium is a much larger organization. As far as you know they are a corporate insurer. And I think the concerns I've heard about Trillium listening to the county, is they don't always have, at least in the past, as good of relationships with some providers as PacificSource did, and their provider network isn't quite I think, in Lane County at least as robust as PacificSource was, for example, as far as emergency care and hospitals, PacificSource has a relationship with both Peace Health, and with Mackenzie Willamette hospitals. So, if you had an emergency, you and your head PacificSource you'd go to either. But Trillium only has a relationship with Peace Health, I see, and so, like those types of things, are things that are going to have to get figured out before February. And Trillium has said it's going to do its best to expand its provider network, to be able to take on 30,000 people right now, and to be willing to take on 90,000 additional people. So, I think that is also why OHA asked for that transition to happen in February instead of in January, is to give Trillium more time to try to work with providers and get more people on board and take their insurance and just expand up. Because, yeah, adding 90,000 people is a lot of people to, you know, insure suddenly in a few months.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know you said that PacificSource still exists and they're still gonna be insuring people, but I'm wondering, because of this loss and moving out of Lane County, do they anticipate layoffs and that sort of thing?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Yes, they announced on Friday that they were laying people off. And I think in their transition plan, they also signaled that in Springfield they were going to be laying people off because of the loss of revenue from Medicaid operations. So, yes, there are layoffs. I think that there is. I think the date I saw on when those people would be laid off was December 31.
MICHAEL DUNNE: As far as you know, if you were a PacificSource, if you did have PacificSource in Lane County, and you're going to now go to Trillium, do you have to do anything? Or is there, is there a transition plan in place? I just wonder if folks listening might be wondering, what do I do right now?
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: I did talk to OHA about this. I specifically asked them about it. Right now, the best thing to do is sit tight and continue to do what you're doing. So, if you've got doctor appointments, go to your doctor's appointments. If you've got ongoing care, keep doing whatever treatments or ongoing care that you have, and the insurers are going to work it out between them with, you know, oversight from OHA, this transition between providers and in this plan that PacificSource has submitted, we got through a public records request. We asked what their transition plan was. They're going to really prioritize coordinating care and coordinating support to people with conditions that are very likely to run into trouble if there is an interruption or a change in provider. So, if you're pregnant, if you've got cancer, if you have, you're on dialysis, those are the type of conditions that they're going to proactively, I think, try to talk to you to make sure that your transition especially goes as smoothly as possible. But right now, people need to sit tight. And I think after the first of the year, hopefully people should be getting some communications if there's anything that they need to change, if their provider might have to change, or if there's any, you know, things that they need to start doing. But right now, what OHA says is just continue medical care. Care that you should be doing.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Sure. Okay, I know these are unrelated, but you've also covered what happened at Oregon Medical Group and people losing their doctors and so on and so forth. I just, I want to ask you; in talking to people and talking to sources, it just feels like this is such a tenuous time in health care and health insurance. I just didn't know if there was a mood or an expression of frustration that you've heard from people in covering these kinds of stories where it seems like very quickly, big changes occur that leave people a little bit in the lurch.
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Yeah, I think that, you know, I don't know for sure if consolidation relates to this case, but I did read a story when PacificSource pulled a lot of operations out of Washington State, they did cite corporate health care consolidation as a factor, because when you insurers negotiate with the providers, and so you know, when you suddenly that, you know, changes very rapidly, and you're not, you know, you don't have the leverage you did. That's tough, I think, on the side of depending on the size of the insurer, because there's a range of different types of insurers. There's United Health, the biggest healthcare Corporation in America, and then a smaller one, like PacificSource. So, I think that healthcare consolidation does cause disruption, and does cause pretty rapid changes, as we've seen with OMG, is that it's the doctors also, I think I've heard from doctors that they were very frustrated by being how little time they could spend with patients, how much was required, feeling burnt out, feeling like they can't have the kind of patient relationships that they want to have, that that. Yeah, so I think that that does really feel like that. Over the last year in Eugene, a lot of places are struggling with things similar, but I think that we're probably in store for even more changes because of the Medicaid cutbacks. Medicaid is kind of a stabilizing source, because people are going to go and go to the ER, is what I mean by that. So, if they have no insurance, and they have, they have to stabilize them because of the change that we're seeing, it does not seem like it's going to go away.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Yeah, it's a brave and scary New World. Rebecca Hanson might always appreciate your reporting. Thanks so much for coming in.
REBECCA HANSEN-WHITE: Thank you very much.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, we'll talk with some local community bankers and get their take on how the local and statewide economy is doing. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On The Record, thanks for listening.
