All Entries in the "Social Services" Category

Bill would require finger-print background checks for nursing home employees

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — A measure that would require nursing homes to do thorough criminal background checks on all potential employees cleared a House committee on Thursday.

House Bill 250 would use about $3 million in federal money and $1 million in state matching money to do a finger-print criminal background check on all employees of Kentucky long-term care facilities.

The background check would quarry databases for previous history of abuse and use finger prints to check for criminal activity nationwide, said Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, and sponsor of the bill.

Long-term care facilities would not have to pay for the background check until the federal grant runs out in 2014. After that, long-term care facilities could either pay for the background checks or pass the cost on to job applicants, said Mary Begley, the Inspector General for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Her office oversees the inspection of long-term care facilities.

House committee approves panel to investigate child abuse deaths in secret

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — An independent panel of experts would examine the deaths of abused and neglected children in Kentucky under a proposal approved unanimously Thursday by a House panel.

The independent child-fatality review panel would make recommendations to the state about how to improve its child-protection system, but the group’s meetings would be closed to the public and its documents would remain secret.

Jon Fleischaker, a lawyer for the Kentucky Press Association, objected to the secrecy of the statewide panel, saying there was no accountability to the public.

“We are all for a statewide panel,” Fleischaker told the House and Health Welfare Committee on Thursday. “But the public needs to be able to see what the recommendations are.”

House Bill 200 also would require the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to create its own internal child-fatality review panels in every county. Currently, only 80 counties have such panels, which investigate suspicious child deaths.

Auditor: Kentucky, private companies were unprepared for Medicaid switch

FRANKFORT — State Auditor Adam Edelen said Wednesday that Kentucky and three private companies contracted to manage care for more than 560,000 Medicaid patients were unprepared for the switch to managed care.

Edelen sent the Cabinet for Health and Family Services 10 recommendations to improve the transition to managed care in the federal-state health care program for the poor, disabled and elderly. Medical providers and patients have complained that the three managed care companies have been too slow to reimburse providers and have cumbersome pre-authorization processes to allow treatment.

Edelen also announced Wednesday that he will create a Medicaid auditing unit that will focus on improving the state’s Medicaid system, which is one of the largest health insurance programs in the state.

The three companies “are sitting on more than a quarter of a billion taxpayer dollars while small-town doctors, hospitals and other health care providers have had to open or extend lines of credit to keep their doors open,” Edelen said.

Bill to open some family courts; tax online horse wagers passes House

By Beth Musgrave

bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — A measure that would allow for a pilot project to open some family courts passed the House unanimously Friday.

House Bill 239 would allow for the creation of pilot projects to open family courts, which hear child abuse, neglect and dependency cases. The pilot projects, to be started on a voluntary basis by family court judges, would run for four years and would set limits on what information can be released from the hearings. The measure passed the House Judiciary Committee earlier this week 12-0. It had no opposing votes Friday. A similar measure passed the House in 2010 but was not heard in the Senate.

Bill to toughen Ky human trafficking laws passes House panel

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — A measure that would strengthen Kentucky human trafficking laws and provide more resources to Kentucky trafficking victims passed the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

House Bill 350 will now go to to the full House. The measure would strengthen Kentucky’s human trafficking laws by increasing fines and would also increase training for Kentucky law enforcement about human trafficking. The bill would create a Human Trafficking Victims Fund, where some of the fines and assets seized in the forfeiture of people convicted of human trafficking would be used to treat victims.

Kentucky passed laws in 2007 that made human trafficking a crime but there has been little education about the law. Kentucky needs to update its laws to address a growing problem nationally and internationally, said Rep. Sannie Overly, D-Paris, and sponsor of HB 350.

“Those laws are not being utilized,” Overly told the committee on Wednesday.

Bill to open family courts passes key hurdle

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — A bill that would allow a pilot project to open family courts unanimously passed a House panel Wednesday and will likely pass the full House in coming days.

House Bill 239 would create at least one pilot project in seven Supreme Court districts to open family court proceedings, including abuse, neglect and dependency hearings. The pilot project would last four years and would allow the courts to determine what information in those court proceedings could be released.

A similar bill passed the House in 2010 but never made it through the Republican-controlled Senate.
Rep. Susan Westrom, D-Lexington, the primary sponsor of HB 239, told the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday that opening the courts would add another level of accountability to the child protection system.

That system has been under fire over the past 18 months after a Franklin Circuit Court judge ordered the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to release internal child protection records when a child dies or nearly dies as a result of abuse and neglect.

Bill spawned by death of brain-injured Lebanon man clears Senate panel

By Beth Musgrave and Valarie Honeycutt Spears
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Six months after a brain-injured Lebanon man disappeared from a Falmouth personal care home and died, a panel of lawmakers approved a bill Wednesday aimed at preventing similar deaths.

Larry Lee’s family mounted an extensive search to find the 32-year-old man with a history of mental illness, but it was four weeks after his August disappearance before Lee’s body was found on the banks of the Licking River not far from the Falmouth Nursing Home in Pendleton County.

The personal care home where he was placed by the state did not have adequate services for Lee, his family said.

Under a proposal that passed the Senate Health and Welfare Committee on Wednesday, potential residents would be screened by a medical professional to determine if a personal care home — which does not provide skilled nursing care or intensive therapy — is an appropriate placement.

Kentucky Medicaid companies say they’re now paying claims faster

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Executives of three private companies that manage care for 560,000 Kentucky Medicaid recipients said Wednesday they are paying healthcare providers more promptly and expect to have problems with pre-authorization for services worked out soon.

Doctors, pharmacists, hospitals, dentists, hospice care and other health care providers have complained repeatedly to legislators that Coventry Cares, WellCare of Kentucky and Kentucky Spirit have been months behind in payments and have a cumbersome and lengthy pre-approval process for medical procedures.

The state moved to managed care on Nov. 1 as a way to save hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several years.

Executives with the three companies told the Senate Health and Welfare Committee that they have expedited claims payments and have offered up-front payments to some providers who are experiencing cash flow problems. Some smaller health care providers have warned that they may have to close their doors because of repeated delays in payments.

Medicaid managed care companies say they’re improving

By John Cheves
jcheves@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Three companies hired last year to manage most of the state’s Medicaid program on Monday defended their efforts thus far and said they’re working to resolve problems.

Lawmakers on the Program Review and Investigations Committee quizzed executives with Coventry Cares, Kentucky Spirit and WellCare of Kentucky, which manage Medicaid outside of the Louisville area under a cost-cutting plan implemented in November by Gov. Steve Beshear.

“Like with any new transformational program involving significant changes, unanticipated problems both major and minor will occur,” said Jim Giardina, vice president for pharmacy services at Coventry Health Care. “We are committed to fixing these problems as quickly as possible, and we will listen and work with the affected parties to address their issues and concerns.”

Lawmakers questioned the executives and their partners at three pharmacy-benefits companies about complaints lodged by Kentucky pharmacists, dozens of whom attended Monday’s hearing.

Health care providers say Medicaid managed care riddled with problems

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — The baby was coming, no matter what a managed care company had to say.

A pregnant woman came to one of Appalachian Regional Healthcare’s eight Kentucky hospitals already in labor before Christmas. But the hospital was told by one of three managed care companies that now run Medicaid in much of Kentucky that it must get pre-authorization to deliver the baby in order to get paid.

Fourteen days after the woman and baby went home, the hospital was still waiting for approval to deliver the baby, said Joe Grossman, vice president and chief financial officer of Appalachian Regional Healthcare.

Grossman was just one of several people to testify Wednesday before a Senate panel about problems with private companies that are now managing Medicaid care in Kentucky.