AUG UST
4–11 , 2021
WWW .GOE
ASTE RNO
REGO N.CO
M
Celebrat
e
East
n Oreg
Beer er
on
Festiva
PAG E
l
3
Art
The Lit
tle
Big Sh
ow
PAG E
4
Watch
Short
Film
Festiva
l
PAG
E 13
Staff phot
Leapin’ o by Ben Lone
Louie
during
entertain rgan/East
Oregonian
the Uma
s
tilla Coun with lasso
tricks
ty Fair.
Count
y fairs
Umatill
a, Grant
, Wallo
wa
PA GE
S 8, 16
“The
Their food is fre
IP
sh,
, 19
Counting the costs of care
lo
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
CHI ST. ANTHONY HOSPITAL
GOOD SHEPHERD MEDICAL CENTER
Tonsil removal at CHI St. Anthony Hospital, Pendleton, costs between $6,740 and $7,295, according to
Oregon Health Authority data.
An MRI for the head and spine costs $217 at Good Shepherd Medical Center, Hermiston, according to the
All Payers, All Claims data.
Baker City Herald, File
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
SAINT ALPHONSUS MEDICAL CENTER
GRANDE RONDE HOSPITAL
Hospitals in the Trinity Health system, such as Saint Alphonsus Medical Center, Baker City, are working
toward increasing price transparency across the board.
Grande Ronde Hospital, La Grande, charges more for tonsil removal and less for an arthrocentesis com-
pared to other area hospitals.
Patient variables, markets play
key roles in health care prices
tner, vice president and chief revenue
offi cer at Trinity Health, which owns the
St. Alphonsus chain of hospitals in Eastern
Oregon and Idaho.
But even procedures that off er little vari-
ation in execution can have dramatic varia-
tions in price.
An MRI for the head and spine costs
$217 at Good Shepherd in Hermiston,
according to the All Payers, All Claims
data. That same procedure would cost
$2,306 at Grande Ronde Hospital.
“There appears to be no rhyme or reason
behind how hospitals price their proce-
dures,” said Jeremy Vandehey, director of
Health Policy and Analytics at OHA. “A
normal birth with no complications,” Van-
dehey continued, “can vary a lot; so one
hospital may charge $5,000 while another
charges $15,000.”
That remains true for several other pro-
cedures as well, and it’s especially true in
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
LA GRANDE — The long-awaited hos-
pital price transparency laws have taken
eff ect on the national level, following a
landmark bill by the Trump administra-
tion requiring hospitals to post their nego-
tiated rates that insurers pay for typical
procedures.
For Oregon, it’s too little too late. In
2015, the Oregon Senate passed a law
requiring hospitals to post the prices they
paid for procedures to the All Payers, All
Claims Reporting Program. Analysts at
the Oregon Health Authority used the
data to make reports about the prices of
common procedures.
The prices were all over the map.
Arthrocentesis — removal of fl uid from
a socket or joint — can range from $370 to
$4,921 at Good Shepherd Medical Center
in Hermiston and costs between $947
to $1,091 at Grande Ronde Hospital, La
Grande.
Tonsil removal, another common proce-
dure, costs between $8,018 and $10,281 at
Grande Ronde, while an hour drive north-
west to CHI St. Anthony Hospital in Pend-
leton the procedure runs from $6,740 to
$7,295.
Hospitals argue that each patient is dif-
ferent, and the care they receive is indica-
tive of the unique challenges diagnosing and
treating patients.
“You might go in thinking that it’s
a $20,000 inpatient surgical procedure
and then you might get a bill for $40,000
because you have implantables, pharmacy,
ultrasounds and the like,” said David Bit-
Eastern Oregon, where Type A hospitals —
hospitals that are more than 30 miles away
from each other — are typically the only
source of health care for rural residents.
“When you have several payers com-
peting for one hospital, they become price
takers,” Vandehey said.
Market power
The intended eff ect of price transparency
was to introduce healthy competition to a
marketplace that had long been shrouded
in secrecy. But Rajiv Sharma, a health eco-
nomics professor at Portland State Univer-
sity, said market power plays a big role in
pricing.
“If insurance companies are faced with
one or two big hospital chains, then they
don’t have very much negotiating power,”
See, Health/Page A5
Fair returns ‘bigger and bett er’
By CARLOS FUENTES and
DAVIS CARBAUGH
The Observer
LA GRANDE —
County fairs can’t be
planned overnight. They
take months of work, from
coordinating vendor sites
to buying advertising to
booking entertainment
close to a year in advance.
Usually, fair managers
are responsible for dele-
gating all of these responsi-
bilities and overseeing plan-
ning throughout the whole
process. But this year’s
Union County Fair man-
ager? Her fi rst day on the
job was Monday, July 26,
nine days before the start of
the fair. Kathy Gover-Shaw
was hired in June 2021 and
has taken the helm of the
community event.
“I did 4-H decades ago
and I’ve always wanted to
give back,” Gover-Shaw
said. “This just came up
and some friends on the
board told me it would be a
really good fi t.”
After a year-long hiatus,
the Union County Fair is
back from Aug. 4-7, with
several changes in the
schedule and the leadership
since the last county fair
in 2019.
Learning on the fl y
With such little time
to learn her new posi-
tion, Gover-Shaw has
relied heavily on the Union
County Fair board mem-
bers. The seven-person
team plans the event
months ahead of time,
working with community
partners like FFA, 4-H and
the Lion’s Club to coordi-
nate the county fair.
WEATHER
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Terry and Julie Magill prepare their lemonade stand at the Union
County Fairgrounds on Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021.
“It’s a huge group of
people that work together,”
Gover-Shaw said. “It’s a
community down here that
makes this happen.”
Full forecast on the back of B section
Tonight
Friday
60 LOW
80/54
Patchy clouds
Not as warm
Gover-Shaw took over
for former fair manager
Margaret Spence, who held
See, Fair/Page A5
