(GREAT FALLS) Alluvion Health has withdrawn from contract negotiations with Cascade County for certain Health Department services.
“Alluvion Health, formerly known as the Community Health Center, is a federally qualified health center in the Great Falls area that serves the region and helps ensure everyone in the community have access to medical, dental and behavior health care,” Alluvion Health director of communications and workforce development Tanya Houston said.
In March, Alluvion Health approached Cascade County commissioners with a contract regarding services historically under the Cascade City-County Health Department.
“Alluvion Health saw the opportunity in our community to better align services and resources,” Houston said.
Those services include prevention, administrative and family health services.
Prevention encompasses the ongoing health of the public. For example, it would cover immunization, cancer control and prevention, and smoking cessation.
Administrative services fall under emergency preparedness and communications.
Family Health Services would cover public health home visiting; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC); and other programs.
“We felt that we had the time and resources to ensure that we could tackle all forthcoming projects in the best way possible,” Houston said.
After four months of negotiations, Houston says Alluvion Health is backing out of contract negotiations and prioritizing two current projects.
“As the negotiations continued and took time as negotiations usually do, we were in a place that we had to make the hard decision to withdraw from those negotiations. That simply is us trying to show our commitment to the community by really fulfilling our obligations to the two projects that we are already committed to,” Houston said.
Alluvion Health has 11 sites across Cascade County. Houston says they plan to expand.
The first project is the revitalization of the Rocky Mountain Building in downtown Great Falls.
The second has not been disclosed, but Houston says it is regarding a new partnership that will increase access to rural communities.
“The two projects that we had to put above everything else were ones that we had lined up for this fall. We had felt like our timeline was solid and that we would have the resources to allocate moving forward,” Houston said. “However, as negotiations took a little bit longer, which again naturally that is understandable, and a decision like this is not made lightly and we fully understand that, but we are committed to holding our word in projects that we have already fully committed to.”
Houston says Alluvion Health looks forward to working with county commissioners and the City-County Health Department in the future.
“In order to be most respectful of the community, our staff, the resources, and the county as a whole, we decided to make this tough decision. We are disappointed that we had to withdraw from these negotiations at this point. We are very committed to an ongoing partnership with City-County Health Department,” Houston said. “We are not opposed to considering negotiations like this moving forward or in the future if the board of county commissioners choose to revisit this. However, at this time it is simply not a good time for Alluvion Health.”
Alluvion Health is located at 601 1st Avenue North.
Alluvion Health is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
