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Oregon Health Authority Director Says More Problems Could Be Revealed

File photo of the Barbara Roberts Human Services Building in Salem.
Chris Lehman
/
Northwest News Network
File photo of the Barbara Roberts Human Services Building in Salem.

Oregon Health Authority Director Pat Allen said more bad news could be coming for the agency he’s led since August. Allen made the statement to a legislative panel in Salem Monday, but he gave no details of what the revelations could be.

It comes soon after news broke that the agency could be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars of Medicaid payments it should not have authorized.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward told Allen she wants the agency to work quickly to address any problems.

“My sense is that you’re working very hard to get to the root of that,” Steiner Hayward said. "I think many of us were dismayed to hear that this was a problem that had been known long ago and not addressed.”

Allen said the Health Authority is conducting an internal audit of the situation.

Separately, the Oregon Secretary of State’s office is also working on an audit of the Oregon Health Authority’s Medicaid program.

Copyright 2017 Northwest News Network

Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.