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A new Portland Fire & Rescue program that sends personnel to low-acuity calls from frequent users of the 911 system rather than sending fire engines and trucks will be funded for another year, says Fire Commissioner Rene Gonzalez.
That program—called Community Health Assess and Treat, or CHAT—was scheduled to lose its startup funding this fall from CareOregon, the state’s largest Medicaid provider. CareOregon agreed to fund the program since its launch in 2021 to see whether CHAT could improve health outcomes, reduce the burden on hospital emergency departments, and use fire bureau staff and equipment more efficiently.
Teams of two CHAT team members respond to calls in SUVs and help connect callers to health care resources and primary care providers, in the hope of diverting them from overusing scarce, more expensive resources.
The fire bureau has struggled to manage overtime costs, putting a major strain on its budget and placing CHAT at risk of disappearing without an infusion of outside money.
Now, Gonzalez says CareOregon has verbally agreed to fund the program for another year.
“We are immensely grateful for CareOregon’s renewed leadership in supporting this innovative program,” Gonzalez says. “CHAT provides essential medical services in the field, reducing hospital visits and increasing efficiency for our first response system.”
That may also give a temporary reprieve to Portland Street Response, another program that operates under the fire bureau, whose employees believe that if push were to come to shove in the bureau budget, its leadership would choose to fund CHAT sooner than it would PSR. (PSR responds to homeless people experiencing mental health crises; the fire bureau has long had a culture clash with the program, which former City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty championed until Gonzalez unseated her in November.)
Another reason firefighters prefer CHAT to PSR: CHAT takes calls firefighters would otherwise have to respond to, while PSR takes calls police officers would have responded to.
Gonzalez’s office offered no further details on the verbal agreement with CareOregon to fund CHAT for another year, but fire bureau employees that work in the program were told this morning that their jobs would be funded for at least another year.