Audit Says OR Health Authority Still Deficient Despite Huge Funding

Since 2021, the Oregon Health Authority has received at least $80 million from the state legislature, for the purpose of bolstering their behavioral health workforce, but an audit says it's not working.

   Audit says OHA lacked a specific organized plan

According to the Oregon Capitol Chronicle, the money was supposed to increase the workforce of behavioral workers, encourage more people to enter the behavioral workforce, and help rural and underserved communities. But the audit says it is unclear if that happened. According to the Chronicle:

"It’s unclear how much progress the funding brought. The agency cannot show the effectiveness of its programs because it did not design performance metrics to show their impact, the agency’s auditors concluded in an internal report. This has restricted the agency’s ability to demonstrate the long-term benefits to lawmakers or communities."

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The audit also blamed a lack of planning, saying OHA did not put together an organized plan of how to engage these communities, recruit and retain workforce, and other necessary functions. The audit went on to say (via the Chronicle):

"The authority’s shortcomings included insufficient outreach to rural and other underserved communities and inconsistent requirements for grant recipients to provide race, ethnicity and other demographic requirements. 

This means the authority cannot show how effective the programs were in recruiting and retaining behavioral health providers who are people of color, tribal members or residents in rural regions, auditors concluded."

OHA officials are said to have agreed with the audit's findings, and are putting in motion plans to better implement and track their efforts.