PORTLAND — A long, acrimonious legal battle between state Medicaid contractor FamilyCare Inc. and the Oregon Health Authority has ended with the state agreeing to pay $22.5 million to the company.
FamilyCare has agreed to donate that money to a medical school in Lebanon, Oregon. The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. It was a Pyrrhic victory for FamilyCare’s founder and CEO Jeff Heatherington. The company has shrunk from 370 employees to four.
“Nothing will change the fact that we had the company going and we had 370 of the finest people I have ever worked with,” Heatherington said.
In 1989, the state created the Oregon Health Plan, an ambitious attempt to reform the health care system. The effort called for coordinated care organizations to be formed to administer the Medicaid system at a local level.