News
Blue Mountain Eagle
LOOK
Continued from Page A1
Students learned about
the IT department responsi-
ble for maintaining internet
connection and managing
the more than 200 comput-
ers and 40 servers in the
hospital. IT Director Chris
Wall told them about neces-
sary qualifications and what
schooling was required to
work as an IT professional.
They also learned about
blood work and other lab du-
ties from the lab technicians
and how the results of tests
help doctors form a diag-
nosis and administer treat-
ment. The lab tech even used
tour leaders to demonstrate
REVOKED
Continued from Page A1
acquire the birth certificates
because they had not yet been
able to get them from the state.
“It was wrong of me to give
them Oregon birth certificates
when I did in fact deliver them
in Washington, but I didn’t
know it was serious,” she said.
“I did not know it was a felony.
I thought it was more import-
ant to get them a birth certif-
icate.”
Dress said she wanted to
explain her actions before the
Board of Direct Entry Mid-
wifery “midwife to midwife”
but was not allowed to do so.
The case was referred to the
Office of Administrative Hear-
ings.
Dress withdrew her re-
quest for a hearing on the case
March 7, resulting in the final
order by default including the
license revocation and about
$8,500 in penalties.
She also withdrew a re-
quest for a hearing on anoth-
er case for submitting a false
Medicaid claim, stating she
was present for a birth she did
not attend in October 2014,
resulting in about $4,400 in
penalties.
Eagle photos/Rylan Boggs
Logan Randleas, right, checks his blood and oxygen
levels in the back of a Blue Mountain Hospital
Ambulance with Anahi Gonzalez, left, and Morganne
Wyllie, center.
how blood is drawn.
Home Health and Hos-
pice Director Sylvia Ross
said the trip was important
because it showed kids they
could have a well-paying
job working in the hospital
without attending college.
Dress said she performed
prenatal and postpartum care,
but the mother delivered the
baby at home when Dress was
not present and later visited
a hospital without informing
her. She said, as she normally
would do, she filled out the
paperwork for global billing
— including everything from
prenatal to postpartum care,
including the delivery — but it
raised a red flag when the hos-
pital also submitted a bill.
Dress’ attorney told her the
legal costs to continue appeal-
ing the cases would likely cost
as much as the penalties, she
said, so she decided to move
on.
in a letter the appeal was de-
nied, but the amount due was
reduced to about $48,400.
“You explained that (Ore-
gon Health Authority’s) inabil-
ity to keep you updated was in
large part the reason you were
unaware and did not comply
with the service plan and other
critical billing elements,” he
said in the November 2015 let-
ter. “When a provider agrees to
become a Medicaid provider
they also agree to understand
the rules and appropriately bill
Medicaid services and further
to retain and then provide re-
imbursement support upon re-
quest of the state.”
Dress appealed the deci-
sion in circuit court in Novem-
ber 2015 before reaching the
settlement. In the court filing,
she said many of the files re-
quested for the audit had been
destroyed in a flood in 2010,
and then the “entire file and re-
cord relevant” to the court ap-
peal burned along with Dress’
house in the Canyon Creek
Complex fire.
The audit and amount due
had nothing to do with “bad
outcomes” for the patients, she
said, but rather billing and pa-
perwork errors, such as using
an outdated form. She and her
lawyer itemized about $7,000
Oregon Medicaid
payments
Dress also agreed to repay
$20,000 to the Oregon Depart-
ment of Human Services for
Medicaid disbursements in a
settlement in Marion Coun-
ty Circuit Court in February.
Her midwifery case files were
audited in 2014 by the state,
which sent her an invoice of
almost $69,500 for Medicaid
overpayments. After an ad-
ministrative appeal in 2015,
Charles Hibner, the adminis-
trator of the Office of Payment
Accuracy and Recovery, said
SATURDAY, MAY 6
7:00AM
Meet at
Blue Mountain
Hospital
4
Hannah Vaughan, right,
peers through a CT
scanner while Hailey
Mecham listens to
radiologic technologist
Kindra Smith explain the
difference between a CT
scan and an X-ray at Blue
Mountain Hospital Friday
during a STEM field trip.
Additionally, she said it is
important to expose children
worth of discrepancies she
needed to repay, but the state
also applied an error rate of 41
percent to all of the files she
lost in the flood, resulting in
about $30,300 of the $48,400
bill.
Dress told the Eagle she
also took issue with DHS ma-
ternity case management pa-
perwork and refused to fill out
the entire questionnaire with
questions about how many
guns and how many toilets
were in a household. She said
it was “none of the state’s busi-
ness.”
“I’m a midwife, not a social
worker,” she said.
She said the state offered a
deal in which she would have
owed no money if she agreed
never to practice midwifery
again — even as a traditional
midwife, which requires no li-
cense in Oregon but does not
allow for the administration of
medication. Dress declined.
“There isn’t any licensed
midwives in Eastern Oregon
or anywhere close to us,” she
said. “How can you tell me I
can no longer deliver babies
since I’ve been doing it since
1971?”
Certifying the profession
The first child Dress deliv-
ered as a midwife in Oregon
was 16 years old before the
state developed a midwife li-
censing program in 1993.
Dress said she helped ini-
tiate the licensing program
in Oregon so insurance com-
panies could reimburse mid-
wives as they do hospitals for
births and was one of the first
to be licensed the same year
the program began. She served
on the Oregon Board of Di-
rect Entry Midwifery for nine
years, the last year as the chair.
Her Oregon attorney, Her-
mine Hayes-Klein, said Dress
had been a traditional home
birth midwife for more than 40
years and had safely delivered
more than 3,000 babies.
“Ms. Dress was a midwife
before midwives were a le-
gally recognized profession.
... Like many other traditional
midwives in the US who have
attempted to keep up with the
changing rules and paper-
work requirements of new and
evolving licensure schemes,
Ms. Dress has been accused of
falling afoul of State regulato-
ry compliance,” Hayes-Klein
said. “... Through such allega-
tions, the skills and services of
many valuable midwives can
be laid to waste, and maternity
care options for rural commu-
nities reduced or eliminated.”
Dress said she believed the
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
to careers in health care at an
early age because of the coun-
ty’s aging population.
“I like to invest time into
these kids because we need
them to go get education and
come back,” Ross said.
The STEM program aims
to promote children’s interest
in pursuing careers in science,
technology, engineering and
math to supply the nation with
future experts on these sub-
jects. STEM teachers across
the country also are receiving
resources, support, training
and development through a
variety of programs.
As part of the Friday field
trip, students also visited Prai-
rie Springs Fish Farm and
Silvies Valley Ranch to learn
about local industry.
“The STEM students had
a great experience visiting
the hospital. Being able to
see the different departments
and jobs offered gave the stu-
dents an idea on the variety of
careers available in the health
care profession,” Humbolt
STEM grant coordinator
Kristal Hansen said. “After
touring the hospital we were
able to travel to the Prairie
Springs Fish Farm near Day-
ville. They were able to feed
the thousands of fish and see
how the operation works. We
then traveled to Silvies Val-
ley Ranch where the students
learned about their cattle and
goat production. The students
loved holding the baby goats
and seeing the old Silvies
school house.”
goal was to end home births so
all babies are born in a medical
setting.
“It’s open season on mid-
wives,” she said. “The bottom
line is I’m the oldest, most
experienced midwife in the
Northwest. They want to do
away with home birth.”
She said she started the
home birth movement in
southern Washington decades
ago. She said she has trained at
least 12 midwives and is very
popular among her clients.
“I’m delivering babies of
babies I’ve delivered now,”
she said. “There’s never been
a problem ever.”
Christian ministry. She said
she began requiring clients to
sign a waiver indicating that
she is not licensed and does
not charge for midwifery, only
seeking reimbursement for ex-
penses.
“I say, ‘What can you af-
ford? This is how much it costs
for me to drive to you,’” she
said. “I’ve been paid between
$500 and $2,500 for my ex-
penses. If they only have $20,
that’s all they give me. I truly
believe that my patients are not
my provider. I believe that God
is and that he will provide.”
Dress said her full price in
Oregon ranges from $3,900-
4,500 for prenatal, delivery
and postpartum care, though
Medicaid only pays about
$2,000.
Dress pleaded guilty to
practicing without a license in
Walla Walla District Court in
May 2016, stemming from the
Magill incident, but she main-
tained she “didn’t do anything
illegal.” She said her lawyer
suggested she take a plea deal
minutes before a court appear-
ance, and regretfully, she did.
The terms of her two-year
probation include not perform-
ing midwifery in Washington,
and she said she has not done
so — even as a gratuitous min-
istry — while on probation.
A stillborn boy
Dress described the alle-
gations against her as lies and
said it was politically motivat-
ed, “fabricated from an inci-
dent that happened a year and
a half ago” in which a mother
she assisted in Walla Walla in
2015 had a stillbirth after ar-
riving at a hospital when the
labor for the planned home
birth failed to progress.
The mother, Sarah Magill,
told the Union-Bulletin news-
paper Dress should serve jail
time for the death and that
Dress’ methods should have
raised numerous red flags.
“We should have known
not to trust someone who is
in such conflict with modern
medicine,” she told the news-
paper.
The coroner who listed the
cause of death as prolonged
labor with fetal hypoxia — in-
sufficient oxygen — said he
believed the child could have
lived if Dress acted differently
during labor, according to the
Union-Bulletin.
Dress told the Eagle she
did nothing wrong and dis-
puted many of the claims in
the article. She said more than
an hour of fetal monitoring at
the hospital showed a heart-
beat and no signs of oxygen
deprivation. Dress never faced
charges for the stillbirth.
Previous Washington
court cases
Dress admitted to the Eagle
the state of Washington issued
a cease-and-desist order, pro-
hibiting her from practicing
midwifery without a license,
in 2013. That’s when she be-
gan listing Oregon as the birth-
place for some Washington
births, she said, because her
access to Washington’s online
birth registry was revoked.
After the order was issued,
Dress claimed she obeyed
the Washington law by offer-
ing her services for free as a
Ride your
bike from
Prairie City
Run/walk
from Pine
Creek or
Dog Creek
Prizes for
the youngest
& oldest
participant!
All kids
participating
will receive
a gift!
or stroll from
7th Street back
to the hospital
Sign up at the
Hospice office by
April 28 or the morning
of the race at the hospital
05487
Blue Mountain Hospice
422 W Main St (First Floor), John Day
575-1648 • mgibson@bluemountainbhospital.org
Baker City
2830 10th St. • 541-524-0122
Every other Monday at
Blue Mountain Hospital
170 Ford Rd. • 541-575-1311
The doctor sp eaks Spanish - El doctor habla Espanol
˜
The case pending trial
With a new lawyer, Dress
vowed to fight the new charges
against her in Washington, two
counts of practicing without
a license, one a gross misde-
meanor and the other a felony.
The Tri-City Herald re-
ported she pleaded not guilty
March 15 to both charges relat-
ed to two Kennewick, Wash-
ington, births whose families
were given birth certificates
stating the children were born
in Oregon.
Washington law defines the
practice of midwifery as ren-
dering “medical aid for a fee or
compensation” from pregnan-
cy to two weeks after birth or
“advertis(ing) as a midwife by
signs, printed cards, or other-
wise.” However, it also states,
“Nothing shall be construed in
this chapter to prohibit gratu-
itous services.”
Dress said she has 50 let-
ters of support from previous
clients, and she is prepared to
argue her case at trial June 5 in
Benton Superior Court.
In Oregon, no license is
required for a traditional mid-
wife, who can charge for ser-
vices provided, but the person
cannot advertise as a midwife
and must disclose the lack of
licensure to the patient. Dress
said she has continued to op-
erate as a traditional midwife
since her license expired in
2015.
Even now, a young fam-
ily is staying at her residence
where they welcomed their
first child Sunday morning.
The baby boy and his mother
already share a common expe-
rience.
Dress delivered the mother
in a home birth 21 years ago.
FATE OF THE FURIOUS PG-13
When a mysterious woman seduces Dom
into the world of crime, the crew face trials
that will test them as never before.
FRI & SAT (12:45) (3:45) 6:45 9:35
SUNDAY (12:45) (3:45) 6:45 9:45
MON-THURS (12:45) (4:00) 6:45 9:45
GOING IN STYLE PG-13
Desperate to pay the bills, three lifelong
pals decide to knock off the very bank
that absconded with their money.
FRI & SAT (12:45) (4:00) 7:00 9:40
SUNDAY (12:45) (4:00) 7:00 9:45
MON-THURS (12:45) (4:00) 7:00 9:45
SMURFS: THE LOST VILLAGE PG
A mysterious map leads Smurfette and
her friends to the discovery of the
biggest secret in Smurf history.
FRI & SAT (12:45) (4:10) 7:10 9:45
SUNDAY (12:45) (4:10) 7:10 9:45
MON-THURS (12:45) (4:00) 7:10 9:45
$9 Adult, $7 Senior (60+), Youth
05494
A10