Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Kissner, six Medicaid directors from other states pulled out in support of countrywide institute

Kissner, six Medicaid directors from other states pulled out in support of countrywide institute
State Medicaid Commissioner Lawrence Kissner is single of seven state train directors to participate in the year-long Medicaid Leadership Institute, which Gov. Steve Beshear thought will help Kissner's aptitude to present high-quality, cost-effective vigor thoughtfulness services to Kentuckians.

AMA president, a Kentuckian, says doctors have a duty to make sure patients know about new health-insurance exchanges

Despite the diverse messages from many physicians almost the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Dr. Arvis Hoven, an internal-medicine and infectious-disease specialist in Lexington and the new-fangled president of the American Medical Association, thought the physicians' lobby will act whatever is inside its power to promote "Obamacare."


Monday, December 2, 2013

Prescription drugs killing more women than ever; Kentucky ties for fifth for its high percentage of deaths

The ongoing countrywide endemic of addiction to prescription painkillers is scattering more quickly amongst women, and it is homicide more women than endlessly beforehand. Kentucky ties Utah in support of the fifth highest percentage of female deaths due to prescription-drug overdose (15.7 percent), says a new-fangled government shot.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

State health department asks Kentuckians to help improve the state's health by commenting on improvement plan by Aug. 1

Yes, Kentucky ranks chief in smoking and cancer deaths, 10th in flabbiness and poorly in other physical condition measurements, but Kentuckians can help further the state's physical condition status by giving their judgment on how to look after to facilitate.

Tips to keep children safe from the dangers of summer heat

While enjoying stage with kin on the dinghy, next to church picnics, in the backyard or next to the beach, be convinced to keep kids safe at some point in the summer intensity.

Community health centers get federal grants to hire employees to help you shop for health insurance coverage

Kentucky's online physical condition insurance argument, Kynect, opens Oct. 1, 2013, and for the most part Kentuckians be required to own physical condition insurance by January of then day or mug accuse penalties having it.

Owsley men most likely in U.S. to be obese, Perry women most likely to die; Morgan women led nation in increasing exercise

Men in Owsley County are the fattest in the United States, and women in Perry County own the lowest life expectation, 72, according to an NBC News inform based on data assembled by the Seattle-based Institute representing Health Metrics and Evaluation, which has industrial a county-by-county, interactive chart of flabbiness, bodily commotion, high spot blood pressure and life expectation from 2001 to 2011.

Ky. Rural Health Association seeks nominations by Aug. 20 for annual award honoring health service to rural Kentuckians

The Kentucky Rural Health Association is seeking nominations representing this year's recipient of the Dan Martin Award, an once a year honor representing an distinctive who has provided many years of service to rural Kentuckians through give instructions tolerant thought, physical condition professions education, physical condition administration, physical condition promotion or known advocacy.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Markey Cancer Center at UK gets National Cancer Institute designation, opening up new treatment options for patients

The University of Kentucky annouced Friday to facilitate its Markey pest Center has earned a prestigious National pest Institute description. With this description, the focus becomes solitary of 68 in the U.S., and the single solitary in Kentucky, with special access to clinical trials, modern treatments and modern drugs representing patients.

Kentucky expands Medicaid reimbursement for telehealth services, but lets managed-care firms keep authority over fees

Kentucky Health News

Recent changes in Kentucky's telehealth regulations are making it easier representing providers around the state and nation state to transfer health-care services to Medicaid patients, therefore civilizing access to specialty thought representing many patients in Kentucky's rural areas.

Chief of cardiothoracic surgery and pediatric heart program at UK, suspended from surgeries, takes job in Florida

Dr. Assess Plunkett, the chief University of Kentucky cardiothoracic doctor whose surgery encode was on the edge after everything else day representing unspecified reasons, has traditional a modern job a the University of Florida.

As health care expands and more providers are needed, pressure grows to allow nurse practitioners more prescribing authority


To the same extent Kentucky expands Medicaid and apparatus the Affordable Care Act, more Kentuckians will own physical condition coverage and access to thought, decline Kentucky's already existing lack of physicians, particularly persons given that primary thought in rural areas. And, as the stakes comprehend senior, so look after tensions amid physicians and nurse practitioners around how newly covered Kentuckians will receive their thought.

LaRue County High School collaborates with university and nursing home to offer nurse-aide training course

Fifteen students next to LaRue County High School own signed up representing a modern nurse's helper taste on hand in coordination with Campbellsville University and a native attention interior through which students will earn a nurse certification. The taste is being subsidized by the district train ward.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Eye exams are now required for children ages 3 to 6 when first starting public school or preschool

Add eye exams to your back-to-school checklist, because state law now requires children aged 3 through 6 who are entering a public school or preschool program for the first time to have a vision exam.

Rushed transition to managed care is cautionary tale for other states, especially those with large rural populations

Kaden Stone and mother, Angelina Alcott (Photo by Julie Bergal)
Since Kentucky's abrupt revolution to a Medicaid managed-care usage in 2011, problems own been extensive amid patients and providers, highlighting the dangers representing other states,

Kentucky picks up on federal Medicaid funding for inmates, which will expand when health reform takes full effect


Medicaid now covers care for inmates outside
prisons and jails, and health reform will extend
coverage to most former prisoners upon release.

Kids' excessive salty snacks are linked to obesity, high blood pressure; new limits on school vending items may help

To the same extent modern delve into shows to facilitate America's child-obesity contagion is linked to drinking too many brackish drinks,  modern federal regulations can ensure to facilitate vending-machine drinks in Kentucky's schools are healthier and sink in sodium.

Community-based solutions to childhood obesity show signs of progress elsewhere; will Kentucky pick up on them?

Get three horrendous Youda Time Management games in solitary bundle!

Youda Survivor 2:

Survive an exotic adventure as you handiwork organized with a friendly tribe to discovery a missing talisman! Fight sour pirates, harness a quantity of cherished physically and be the hero.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Dr. Hernandez, dead at 84, remembered as public-health leader, especially for women

Funeral services were held Tuesday, July 16, representing Dr. Calixto “Carlos” Hernandez, a Cuban expatriate who was a leader in Kentucky's public-health usage and officer of the state physical condition unit from 1984 to 1992.

Online health-insurance exchange will differ in several ways from those in other states; scheduled to go online Oct. 1

Kentucky is solitary of 17 states setting up its own online health-insurance argument under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. A modern inform provides a some degree of renew around the process, and reminds us to facilitate

Kentucky among states selected to study, address expensive problem of 'superusers' of emergency rooms

Kentucky is solitary of a a small number of states teaming up with the National Governors Association to attend to the expensive glitch of uninsured or Medicaid-covered "superusers" who over-use hospice emergency quarters or other costly physical condition services as an alternative of lower-cost alternatives like primary thought.

U.S. News gives Kosair Children's Hospital a national ranking; 11 other Kentucky hospitals make 'high-performing' list

Each day, U.S. News and World Report publishes its "Best Hospitals" direct representing fill with seeking a high spot level of specialty thought. The single Kentucky hospice to be nationally ranked in the inform representing 2014 is Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville.

Study shows talking with college students about binge drinking makes them think about it

College students who hear warnings around splurge drinking from kin or links are more likely to be concerned around their own alcohol consume, compared to persons who don't hear this advice, a modern study indicates.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Seven Ky. communities get grants to reduce risks for chronic diseases among children and 'Invest in Kentucky's Future'

Seven diverse Kentucky communities are getting money to reduce the lay bare of chronic disease amid Kentucky's youth. The preliminary grants announced Thursday are part of the Foundation representing a Healthy Kentucky's modern Investing in Kentucky’s Future initiative, a five-year, $3 million encode.

Kentucky, insurance companies are applying lessons learned in state's hurried transition to managed-care Medicaid



Gov. Steve Beshear rushed to remove Medicaid into a modern bed called managed thought, hopeful the modern way would save money and further physical condition, but his administration didn't take stage to condition the soil, fertilize the ground or smear with oil the machinery in 2011. This month, managed-care company Kentucky Spirit proved to be the self-plucking bad prepare, fleeing the state as it cited unbearable expenses.

School boards across Ky. realign school-nurse programs, squeezed by budget cuts and Medicaid payment issues

School districts in Kentucky own long relied on district physical condition departments representing train nurses, but state financial plan cuts and problems with Medicaid reimbursements own squeezed the physical condition agencies, and they in try own plunk the squeeze on the schools representing more money and other measures.

As prescription painkillers become harder to get and abuse, heroin replaces them in Eastern and Southern Kentucky

 
Heroin consume, which has been a glitch in Northern and followed by Central Kentucky in the same way as the state began cracking down on prescription painkillers after everything else day, has been dispersion to the Southern and Eastern parts of the state.

Hospital and insurance chiefs say health reform will improve Ky.'s health care and its health, after bumps in road

Brinkley


The federal health-reform law will further physical condition thought and help nominate Kentuckians healthier, though a quantity of will be inconvenienced, officials of Kentucky's leading hospitals

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Health Watch USA hosts chief medical director of Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Lexington and online

Dr. Patrick Conway, chief remedial director of the federal Center in support of Medicare and Medicaid Services, will be presenting to Kentucky-based Health Watch USA ., and with a only some clicks on the supercomputer, you can attend effectively.

New survey shows physicians feel need to limit health-care costs but make that secondary to the interests of their patients

A new-fangled survey almost health-care overheads reveals so as to 85 percent of U.S. Physicians feel a dependability to take in hand overheads but say other professionals allow more of a dependability to act so as to, as physicians' obligation about patients' interests is more imperative than cost reductions.

While 36 percent of physicians thought they allow a "major responsibility" to reduce overheads, other major players in vigor thoughtfulness, such as lawyers, insurance companies, hospitals and drug companies, bear so as to major dependability, says the study in print in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

Beshear, Stumbo credit law for reducing prescription-drug deaths, but reduction was far outnumbered by rise in heroin fatalities

Deaths from prescription-drug abuse in Kentucky declined keep up time in support of the at the outset instant in a decade, and top state officials are crediting a law voted for by so as to year's General Assembly.

However, passage of the law has prompted many drug users to switch to heroin, and the escalation in heroin deaths (121) was much superior than the decline in prescription-drug dead (19).

Rural doctors need to support recruitment of more colleagues, former Leitchfield hospital administrator writes

With Kentucky's doctor famine almost to be exacerbated by development of the Medicaid train and federally subsidized vigor insurance, nearby will be more competition than endlessly to recruit physicians, especially to rural communities. Some doctors resist such recruitment, but they are short-sighted, writes Stephen Meredith, earlier chief executive detective of Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center in Leitchfield.

Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center
"When I became president of TLRMC in 1983 our area sickbay had seven doctors on its remedial body, so the at the outset order of commercial was the recruitment of extra physicians, or so I accepted wisdom. When this notion was presented to the collective remedial body it with was met with a unambiguous 'NO.' The remedial staff’s alarm was recruitment would hurt them financially by auxiliary 'dividing the pie' of a restricted digit of patients," Meredith writes in support of The Record in Leitchfield.

Newspapers large and small inform readers (and even non-subscribers) about the complexities of health-care reform

Modish almost two months, states and the federal government will friendly online marketplaces in support of vigor insurance, which will plus offer subsidies based on pay packet and the opportunity in support of the poor to put your name down in the Medicaid train in states so as to allow extended it beyond the poverty level. By stride 31, almost all Americans will be necessary to allow vigor insurance or recompense a penalty.

Critics say new Medicare rate-setting board has too much power; former budget chief says new system requires it

Critics as diverse as Republican state representative. Addia Wuchner and earlier countrywide Democratic chairman and Vermont controller Howard Dean, a doctor, are criticizing the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel fashioned by the federal health-care reform law to clutch down health-care overheads. But a finance executive who helped create the board says the critics are inedible pedestal.

Auditor Edelen says Medicaid providers 8 percent fewer under managed care; cabinet says report is limited, outdated

The digit of frequent relaying on Medicaid will escalation dramatically in 2014, as Kentucky expands it to include frequent with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, but nearby is more alarm than endlessly almost the availability of health-care providers to talk of them.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Adair County Hospital District files Chapter 9 bankruptcy

Modish a move perhaps unparalleled in Kentucky, the Adair County Hospital District has voted to funnel in support of protection under Chapter 9 of the federal liquidation code, the same phase used by bankrupt cities such as Detroit.

Free medical screenings, dental work for teens and adults available in Mayfield through

West Kentuckians in need of vigor thoughtfulness can progress free of charge remedial, dental and optical screenings through Tuesday, Aug. 13 by the side of the old Morgan Haugh Clinic building by the side of 220 W. Walnut St. In Mayfield from 9 a.M. To 7 p.M., counting Saturday and Sunday.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Congressman visits Telehealth Primary Care Clinic in Campton

U.S. Rep. Andy Barr
U.S. Representative. Andy Barr, a freshman Republican from the Sixth District, recently visited the Telehealth Primary Care Clinic in Campton. The clinic, single of two in Kentucky funded by federal telehealth grants, opened in dignified 2012, and "provides access to primary and specialty thoughtfulness in support of the similarity through set-up established by Kentucky One Health, the chief vigor order in the Commonwealth," reports KyForward.

Chinese meditation technique offers hope

Modish 2010, Kentucky had the succeeding highest rate of adult smokers in the U.S., with 24.8 percent of the adult population -- or 1.1 million adults -- smoking, according to statistics from the Cabinet in support of Health and Family Services. Only West Virginia, by the side of 26.8 percent, had an elevated percentage of adult smokers.

So, could you repeat that? Can Kentuckians act to nick the cigarette tradition?  A Chinese contemplation procedure might contain the answer. And the kicker is, smokers don't even need to focus on quitting smoking to be thriving.

A study by Texas Tech University and the University of Oregon "looked by the side of the effect of the mindfulness contemplated celebrated as Integrative Body-Mind Training on the pathways in the brain connected to addiction and self-control, exposed so as to be practicing the contemplation implement, smokers cut their tradition by 60 percent. The control crowd so as to expect a rest regimen as a substitute showed nixes reduction in their smoking," reports Newswise, a research-reporting service.

Federal report

Added than two dozen Kentucky communities still allow hospitals as of the critical-access sickbay train, in which small, isolated hospital's progress elevated Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements in return in support of limiting their size and services. Now federal officials appear to be making an allowance for a move so as to possibly will cost the hospitals money and perhaps deposit them by the side of the hazard of ultimate.

Most of the hospitals would not unite current location supplies if necessary to re-enroll to progress reimbursements from Medicare, and the Centers in support of Medicare and Medicaid Services possibly will realize considerable savings by revoking certification to a little of these hospitals and reimbursing them by the side of let down tariff calibrate by prospective payment systems and fee schedules more willingly than by the side of 101 percent of overheads, according to a shot by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Most who would benefit from insurance exchanges under health reform knew nothing about them last fall

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will affect millions of Americans, especially individuals in rural areas. But many are not prepared in support of the appearance changes, according to a survey by Enroll America, a non-profit crowd so as to call itself "an external organization whose mission is to amplify the digit of uninsured Americans who put your name down in vigor coverage made existing by the Affordable Care Act" through online insurance marketplaces celebrated as exchanges.

webinar will help journalists understand health reform

Jennifer Tolbert
After The Rural Blog in print a piece (see below) days gone by so as to thought 80 percent of frequent who possibly will benefit from insurance exchanges being established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act knew nothing almost it, a reporter without delay emailed to say she and a co-worker were difficult to make sense of the comport yourself in support of readers, and "I'm personally terrified."

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Effort for kids' dental health in Clark, started by volunteers and continued by health department with tax, earns national award

"A similarity effort to fight tooth decay in children in Clark County has been named a archetype in support of the population," veteran journalist Al Smith reports in an op-ed in support of the Lexington Herald-Leader. The Clark County Dental Health Initiative expected the determination in support of archetype practice keep up month by the side of the yearly consultation of the National Association of City and County Health Officials, and the province vigor board recently raised taxes to recompense in support of it.

Ashland hospital lays off another 4 percent

King's Daughters Medical Center in Ashland is laying inedible any more 4 percent of its payroll and ultimate satellite centers in Pikeville and Russell, citing let down facts of patients and cut-rate federal and state reimbursements.

Agreement will move at least 600 from personal-care homes to community mental health facilities

At smallest amount 600 frequent at the moment in personal-care homes will be stirred to community-based settings under "an agreement so as to advocates say will systematically amend the way similarity mental vigor services are delivered in Kentucky, humanizing the lives of hundreds of frequent with mental illnesses and disabilities," Beth Musgrave reports in support of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Laurel True, longtime advocate for health, education and human services, dies suddenly at 80

Laurel W. True, who continued his public service for health and other causes long after leaving state government, died suddenly Saturday at his home near Waddy in Shelby County. He was 80.

"For the onwards five decades, Mr. True worked tirelessly to better the vigor and welfare of Kentuckians," The Courier-Journal thought in an editorial. Modish the 1970s True was the at the outset desk of the old Cabinet in support of Human Resources and executive director of Kentucky Health Systems Agency-West, a state health-planning organization, and was an assistant director of community tutoring. Earlier, he helped start Medicaid in Kentucky and the conversion of United Mine Workers hospitals into Appalachian Regional Hospitals.

National magazine looks at drug companies' efforts to stop anti-methamphetamine bills, especially in Kentucky

Modish a strong sample of undercover treatment in support of Mother Jones magazine, largely almost Kentucky, outworker Jonah Engle delves into the history of how making methamphetamine became a unpretentious task via over-the-counter cold medications, and how drug makers allow warded inedible on the whole state laws intended to turn into the decongestant pseudoephedrine more fractious to possession. (Photo by Stacy Kranitz: Cleaning up a meth lab found on prepare property in London.)

UK, with magnet of National Cancer Institute designation, attracts 4 researchers and their $17 million in funding from U of L

"A month bearing in mind the University of Kentucky announced it is home-based to the state’s at the outset National sarcoma Institute-designated cancer midpoint, an globally acknowledged exploration team studying the role metabolism the stage in cancer is leaving the University of Louisville in support of its chief in-state rival," Laura Ungar reports in support of The Courier-Journal. "The four researchers . . . Will bring with them more than $17 million in federal funding greater than five years."

Kentucky expands list of permanent locations for safe disposal of unneeded or expired prescription medications


Gov. Steve Beshear announced at present so as to Kentucky at the moment has 149 undeviating prescription drug disposal locations in 97 counties anywhere Kentuckians can safely dispose of unused or expired medications in order to help hold back the state's prescription drug abuse difficult.

“The personal property of prescription drug abuse are devastating to our families and our communities,” Beshear thought in a news announce. “Medications, when they are nix longer desirable in support of their prescribed purposes, be supposed to be disposed of suitably to reduce their hazard of being diverted and abused . . . "

Obamacare hearing highlights employers' worry and uncertainty; Yarmuth says repeal and defunding bids block needed changes

Three of Kentucky's congressmen agreement at a field hearing in Lexington Tuesday that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act needs changing, but had no a consensus on how it should be fixed.

From left, U.S. Reps. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District; Andy Barr, R-6th District; and Brett
Guthrie, R-2nd District, listen to Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tennessee, who chaired the hearing.
Business leaders by the side of the trial plus called in support of a organize, maxim the law creates challenges in support of employees, workers and the thrift.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Some parents complain about healthier school lunches, but USDA says it's on course to improve public health

 
A only some prepare districts in other states are opting not worth it of a federal-funded prepare eat train so as to was touted by at the outset woman Michelle Obama to provide healthier options to students, and a little parents in Harlan County are complaining almost the new-fangled menus. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the National School Lunch Program, says the naysayers are in a small alternative and the healthier fare will befall more general and better community vigor.

Donor who helped Monroe schools take over

The Monroe County Schools are getting a $1 million-plus donation in support of a type wellness midpoint and scholarships in support of graduates of the county's simply from top to toe prepare from manufacturer George Eagle Bushong of Bradenton, Fla., who grew up in a prominent Monroe County type.

George Bushong and daughter Isabelle
School Supt. Lewis Darrell transporter told Shelley Smith of the Glasgow Daily Times so as to Bushong had mentioned his intent to donate $50,000 a time in support of 10 years in support of the  Monroe County Family Wellness Center, and surprised him two weeks in the past by count an further $55,000 in support of the after that decade in support of various scholarships.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Kentucky nursing homes rank 40th in the nation in new survey

Kentucky got a D grade and a rank of 40th amongst the states in a new-fangled countrywide survey of nursing-home thoughtfulness, and reform advocates are calling on Gov. Steve Beshear and other policymakers to take counteractive charge.

The state ranks lowest in the Southeast, the lowest ranked region, in treatment home-based thoughtfulness quality; single in five Kentucky treatment homes were cited as having a Spartan deficiency, "indicating prevalent abuse, neglect and maltreatment of residents," says the shot of the survey, fashioned by a Florida-based advocacy crowd Families in support of Better Care.

Obamacare hits the streets in Kentucky and attracts national news coverage

 

The Kynect website, anywhere Kentuckians can set out to sign up in support of insurance coverage and determine their eligibility in support of it, doesn't cite the federal government, reports Kevin Drum of Mother Jones in an article upper-class "Here's Hoping That Obamacare Is Better Than That Appalling Obamacare."

The state position describes the long-awaited (for some) and highly controversial (for more) law: Lacking referring to it unequivocally: "Starting after that time, on the whole Americans will be necessary to allow vigor insurance. By using Kynect, you might receive payment assistance, special discounts or stretch credits to help cover the overheads of coverage in support of you, your type or your employees,"it says.

Just-released figures show uninsured by county

People in Logan, Magoffin, Casey, Todd, Menifee, Adair, Monroe, Edmonson and McCreary counties are more likely to lack vigor insurance than residents of other Kentucky counties, according to the data precisely released from the Bureau of the Census. And children are smallest amount likely to be insured in Todd, Monroe, Lyon, Edmonson, Webster, Hickman, Logan, Trigg, Woodford and Breckinridge counties.
Example of interactive mapping shows data for Logan County, highest in percentage of uninsured

Monday, October 14, 2013

eye safety during fall sports season

eye safety during fall sports season
Children are back in prepare, on stage sports, and parents can take precautions to ensure their children's eye safety as they compete.

Although many parents are ignorant of the risks posed to their child's eye safety, almost 40,000 eye injuries take place in the United States all through sports or recreational activities both time, says Prevent Blindness America. Some sport-related eye injuries go in front to eyesight loss, with almost one-third of them occurring in children linking the ages of 5 and 14, says the Kentucky Optometric Association.

Judge OKs Medicaid expansion and health insurance exchange

A expert upheld Gov. Steve Beshear's decisions to increase Medicaid and calibrate up the state's health-insurance swap over under federal vigor reform, but his adversaries say they will carry on to fight in quad.

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd's two rulings mean so as to implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, through Medicaid development and the vigor swap over will carry on as intended, by the side of smallest amount in support of at the moment.
Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd
Tea Party broadminded David Adams filed a proceedings in April challenging the governor's authorized authority to create the insurance swap over, which is called Kynect and begins enrollment Oct 1, lacking at the outset seeking admiration from the General Assembly.

Heart Institute joins Appalachian Regional Healthcare to advance specialty empathy thoughtfulness in Eastern Kentucky

Appalachian Regional Healthcare, the Appalachian Heart Center and UK HealthCare’s Gill Heart Institute announced a new-fangled collaboration to present cardiovascular thoughtfulness to Eastern Kentuckians, which will go on the UK's sub-specialty thoughtfulness footprint and escalation access to cardiovascular expertise in the area.

Join high schoolers around the state

Join high schoolers around the state
Modish training in support of its countrywide sunlight hours of charge, the "It Can Wait" campaign teamed up with state legislators in four schools across Kentucky to escalation awareness almost the risks of texting while driving. Become an advocate too by taking the warranty not to text and drive.

State representative. Injure Nelson of Middlesboro, Sen. Brandon Smith of Hazard and AT&T amalgamated to provide a simulation in support of students by the side of Bell County High School to become skilled at almost dangers of texting while driving. The simulator subjected the participants to a variety of real-life traffic conditions, like driving alongside a motor vehicle, showcasing the real-life dangers of texting.

When heroin service increases in Kentucky, new-fangled shot shows its strong relations to abusers of prescription pest medicines

Kentucky's law-enforcement agences, policymakers and public-health advocates allow taken serious measures to hold back the state's rampant prescription drug abuse difficult, and up to date state and countrywide news stories advise so as to the cut-rate supply of these painkillers, by the side of smallest amount the ones in a non-crushable form, has driven pill abusers to heroin. Now there's exploration to support this theory.

Statewide forum on community efforts to promote children's

"The goal is unpretentious, the challenge fractious – how to ensure so as to the current generation of children in Kentucky grows up healthier than their parents. A free of charge one-day consultation appearance up in Erlanger will attempt to copy engaged municipal leaders into so as to effort," veteran Kentucky newscaster Greg Stotelmyer reports in support of Public News Service.

€600 savings on offer in healthiness cover penalty war

€600 savings on offer in healthiness cover penalty war

The insurers allow launched 19 new-fangled "corporate" vigor insurance procedure which are existing to all customers.

These corporate procedure are marketed to companies so as to recompense in support of the concealed remedial insurance of their body, but by law they allow to be made existing to a person who asks in support of them.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

comprehensive plan for diabetes prevention

Kentucky leads the way in the fight not in favor of diabetes and towards civilizing physical condition representing upcoming generations of Kentuckians by fitting the chief state to legislatively require a statewide, broad court case mean representing addressing this disease contagion.

Over 500,000 Kentuckians, 10 percent of the state’s population, are living with diabetes, price the state around $4.8 billion a day in give instructions and indirect medicinal expenses, put pen to paper R. Stewart Perry and Larry Smith, co-chairs of the American Diabetes Association's state board of directors, in an op-ed case in The Courier-Journal. While it hasn't been widely reported, state policymakers recently tackled the matter.

Are health insurers trying to trick individual policyholders

Humana's letter (Courier-Journal photo)
State officials say Humana Inc. Is misleading personality policyholders by decisive them they can keep their current plan in support of a time by the side of current tariff or progress a costlier plan so as to complies with federal vigor reform and asking them to wish by Sept. 20. That's 10 days beforehand they will be able to "shop in support of less-expensive insurance so as to complies with the vigor thoughtfulness law, often called Obamacare, and perhaps qualify in support of government subsidies to help recompense in support of it," writes Laura Ungar of The Courier-Journal. "State officials are plus reviewing a communication by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield asking frequent to "call now' to lock in 'today’s reasonable rates'."

small businesses to help them plan for implementation of the Affordable Care Act

What will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mean in support of Kentucky's small businesses? A webinar  is designed to take in hand such questions almost the federal health-care reform law, often called Obamacare.

Teen service of e-cigarettes doubles in onwards time but might equal nicotine patches in selection smokers to relinquish or nick back

E-cigarettes use battery-operated products that turn nicotine
and other chemicals into vapor to be inhaled by the user.
Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, might truly benefit smokers who care for to relinquish by selection them smoke fewer cigarettes and burden as fine a job as nicotine patches to help them relinquish the tradition, says a new-fangled study.

The shot is the at the outset of its kind to shine a potentially assured light on the public-health deliberate almost e-cigarettes, which are not yet regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and allow generated alarm from U.S. Vigor officials and community vigor experts; the Centers in support of Disease Control says they are addictive and possibly will be risky.

State health-insurance exchange plans to make smokers pay 40 percent more for coverage; varied interests, observers object

Supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act allow touted its goal to provide vigor insurance to all Americans lacking discrimination, such as prohibiting insurers from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions. But it allows them to charge smokers more in support of it, and the officials running Kentucky's health-insurance swap over plot to act precisely so as to.

Eastern Time will look at rates and plan offerings in state health-insurance exchanges

The succeeding in a succession of webinars in support of journalists layer the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will be held Tuesday from 12:30 to 1:30 p.M. ET. This single will look by the side of insurance tariff and plot offerings in the new-fangled state-based marketplaces celebrated as vigor settlement exchanges.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Caregivers of Alzheimer's patients suffer

Jim Crabtree
Caregivers of Alzheimer's patients suffer

It's unexceptional to hear almost diseases like Alzheimer's drastically touching the lives of individuals who allow it, often causing Spartan struggles and hardships. What you might not hear much almost is how caregivers of frequent with Alzheimer's can plus suffer severely and greatly.

Beshear announces rates in health-insurance exchange

Beshear notes that 15 percent of Kentuckians are uninsured (light green in pie chart); at left is
Kynect Director Carrie Banahan; at right is Health and Family Services Secretary Audrey Haynes.
Tossing not worth it the at the outset examples of could you repeat that? Kentuckians will recompense in support of necessary vigor coverage through the state vigor insurance swap over so as to opens Oct. 1, Gov. Steve Beshear predicted days gone by, "The vast majority of frequent are leaving to be very excited almost could you repeat that? They attain. . . . When they check it not worth it, they’re gonna sign up."

FDA changes painkiller labels to warn expectant mothers, after 2,500% growth in number of Ky

FDA changes painkiller labels to warn expectant mothers, after 2,500% growth in number of Ky
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Tuesday drug-safety labeling changes and new-fangled post-market study supplies in support of all extended-release and long-acting opioids, and Kentucky biased leaders applauded these measures to hold back prescription drug abuse.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Providers get ready to unite reform goal of better enduring outcomes, which will dictate recompense, not volume of patients and procedures

Kentucky businesses are continuing to reward clarity almost the intent of the federal vigor reform so as to will take chubby effect on Jan. 1, reports commemorate Green of The traffic lane Report reports, a Lexington-based commercial magazine.

"One major reform goal is shifting the economic archetype from fee-for-service to fee-for-outcomes – healthier patients and populations will generate the on the whole revenue, more willingly than increasing the volume of tests and procedures conducted and medicines prescribed," Green writes.

Anthem gift will give permission Kentucky Homeplace enlarge diabetes self-management and education project to counties in Western Ky.

Kentucky Homeplace has been awarded a succeeding gift of $150,000 from the Anthem Foundation to carry on its diabetes self-management education project in Appalachian Kentucky counties so as to allow from top to toe tariff of diabetes but lack providers to help take in hand it.

McConnell calls in support of one-year delay in reform law's major requirement, so as to Americans purchase vigor insurance

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell
U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell is calling for a one-year delay in the requirement for almost all Americans to buy health insurance, followed by repeal of the federal health-reform law. The Obama administration has said it will delay for a year its enforcement of the related requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees insure them.
"But could you repeat that? Almost everybody as well?" McConnell asked in a speech on the council floor Sept. 12. "What almost the up to date college grad in Louisville who’s barely scraping by as it is, and won’t be able to afford a premium escalation? What almost the families from Covington to Paducah who are anxious sick almost this law? Doesn’t the administration think these individuals deserve a little relief too? The same kind of delay, by the side of smallest amount, so as to businesses will progress?"

State picks managed-care outfits in support of extended Medicaid

The state awarded contracts Friday to Humana Inc., Passport Health Plan and Wellpoint subsidiary Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to get by the shape control of Kentuckians who will suit eligible meant for Medicaid as soon as the state expands the syllabus under federal shape reform Jan. 1.

National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month: Policy changes underway in Ky

September is National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, and a come to of procedure changes are underway to combat the increasing trend of fat children in America and Kentucky, everyplace individual in three kids are on their way to emergent Type 2 diabetes.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Hard-hitting TV ads against smoking do motivate smokers, like one mother from Elizabethtown, to quit

Hancock with CDC Director Tom Frieden
A 38-year-old Elizabethtown mother's response to a federally funded anti-smoking advertising campaign has been featured in state news this week, presentation to facilitate these graphic ads can motivate smokers to renounce.

Lisha Hancock's decision to interrupt her two-decade smoking pattern was sparked by her viewing of a Centers representing Disease Control and Prevention’s “Tips from Former Smokers” campaign for profit, reports Sarah Bennett of The News-Enterprise in Elizabethtown.

Hancock's partner often urged her to renounce, and several of her relatives died from smoking, but she still didn't renounce. She continuously had a sore throat and blocked sinuses, but she still didn't renounce. Then, she maxim the for profit.

Obamacare recruiters encounter resistance in rural Kentucky

Promoters of the modern health-insurance usage being twisted under the federal health-reform law are running into resistance in rural Kentucky, wherever "tend to be a reduced amount of connected to the Internet and a reduced amount of exposed to advertisement campaigns under way in the state," The pile Street Journal reports. "And they are typically more conservative, every so often with deep antipathy regarding President Barack Obama and something linked to him."

Erin Hoben
“In rural areas, they’re not getting a lot in life of the upbeat messaging” around the law, Erin Hoben, an outreach coordinator representing Kentucky Voices representing Health, a federation of pro-Obamacare groups, told reporter Arian Campo-Flores, who writes: "Among the qualms articulated by audience members next to forums she has attended: To facilitate the law will cause taxes to mound and bankrupt federal and state governments. At solitary contemporary event, “One guy called me a ‘Yankee’ and stopped discussion to me,” held Hoben, who is from Louisville.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Study links gum-disease bacterium to collagen-caused rheumatoid arthritis

Although researchers and clinicians allow long celebrated almost an correlation linking two prevalent chronic stirring diseases - periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis - the microbiological relations allow been vague; a new-fangled study suggests this link is causal and so as to the bacteria trustworthy in support of gum disease leads to a closer chain of rheumatoid arthritis.

Modish a up to date article in print in PLoS Pathogens by University of Louisville School of Dentistry researchers say, "The bacterium trustworthy in support of periodontal disease, Porphyromonas gingivalis, worsens rheumatoid athritis by leading to earlier commencement, closer chain and greater severity of the disease, counting increased bone and cartilage destruction," according to a U of L news announce.

The study says the bacterium produces an enzyme so as to worsens collagen-induced arthritis, a form of arthritis related to rheumatoid arthritis produced in the laboratory.

The study was led by Oral Health and Systemic Diseases Group researcher Dr. Jan Potempa and a team so as to plus willful any more oral bacterium in support of the same effect, and found it did not affect collagen-induced arthritis or advise a link to rheumatoid arthritis.

“This ground-breaking conclusion will need to be verified with auxiliary exploration,” thought Potempa. Although the definite cause in support of the disease remains unknown, Potempa thought he hopes these findings will shed new-fangled light on the cure and prevention of rheumatoid arthritis.

An estimated 294,000 children under age 18 allow a little form of arthritis or rheumatic condition, says 2010 data from the Center in support of Disease Control and Prevention; this represents approximately 1 in each 250 children in the U.S. An estimated 1.5 million adults had rheumatoid arthritis in 2007.

Fruit bat roosting in a home

Fruit bat roosting in a home
Northern Kentucky physical condition officials are notice residents to be more wary of bats in the same way as an unusually high spot total of residents own made speak to with bats inside their homes and own had to receive the rabies vaccine. They are asking them to inform several bump into with bats to the physical condition unit.

Bats are commonly infected with rabies and own very small teeth, and so someone who wakes up with a bat in their bedroom might not realize it has bitten them, Northern Kentucky Health Department narrator Emily Gresham-Werle told Brenna Kelly of The Kentucky Inquirer.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Study says obese children (Kentucky's a leader in that) may have quadruple the risk of having high blood pressure as adults


A new study shows that being obese in childhood may quadruple the risk of having high blood pressure risk as an adult, highlighting the need for Kentucky to curb its high rate of childhood obesity.

Eighteen percent of Kentucky high schoolers are obese, tying Mississippi for the highest percentage among the states, says a report by Kentucky's Task Force on Childhood Obesity. In the age range of 10 to 17, Kentucky trails several other states but remains a national leader.

KET will show how annual county health rankings are stirring competition to improve health, community by community

The rankings are in quartiles, or fourths of the 120 counties
Kentuckians love the competition among their basketball and football teams. But what if that same spirit of competition was transferred to health? To help encourage such competition, and thus improve health county by county, the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute produces county health rankings each year, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Kentuckians can act to protect against heart disease and stroke; half of preventable deaths occur in adults age 65 or younger


Nearly one on three deaths in the U.S. each year is caused by heart disease and stroke. At least 200,000 of these deaths are preventable, and nearly half of those preventable deaths are of people under 65, says a new report.

What can you do to stop heart disease and stroke from killing you? Change your health habits, says the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "Vital Signs" report. Changes can include quitting smoking, getting more physical activity and using less salt in your diet. Kentucky communities can also take preventive measures by creating healthier living spaces, such as smoke-free zones and safe places to exercise.

KentuckyOne Health to start around-the-clock online or phone access to health-care providers for $35 a visit on Nov. 1

Hospital group KentuckyOne Health says it will launch a program on Nov. 1 that will let Kentuckians get urgent care at any time by consulting with a medical professional over the phone or web camera. The group says KentuckyOne Anywhere Care is among the first such programs in the nation.

“KentuckyOne Health’s purpose is to expand access to quality health care, no matter where you live in the Commonwealth; is one way we are doing that,” CEO Ruth W. Brinkley said. “We can provide primary care to more Kentuckians, while saving them time, hassle and expense. We can treat conditions before they become more acute, as well as prevent unnecessary and costly emergency room visits.”

Kentucky poverty rate is fifth highest in U.S., but a larger share of Kentuckians had health insurance in 2012 than in 2011



In 2012, as U.S. incomes remained lower and poverty rates higher than in 2007, the year before the recession, Kentucky poverty rates increased and one in four Kentucky children were living in poverty, according to estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. However, the percentage of Kentuckians with health insurance increased.

Kentucky had the fifth highest percentage of residents living in poverty (19.4 percent) in 2012, up from 18.8 percent in 2011. It ranked behind Mississippi (24.2 percent), New Mexico (20.8), Louisiana (19.9) and Arkansas (19.8). However, it was statistically tied with the last two states for third place because the error margin for the estimates is plus or minus 0.5 percentage points. Nationally, 2012 was the second straight year that the U.S. poverty rate had failed to improve. It remained at 15 percent, with 46.5 million people earning at or below the federal poverty line. Click here for an interactive poverty rate map from Stateline.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Weekly newspaper in Jessamine County localizes modifications visiting health insurance and medical care



The Jessamine Journal did an account this week that many Kentucky newspaper are able to do, spotlighting the local impacts of Medicaid expansion under federal health reform and federal tax credits for private insurance over the state many benefits exchange that opens Oct. 1, and comparing the local percentages to the remainder of the state.


This graphic by Jonathan Kleppinger illustrated the story.

Using food labels and other guidance helps you control weight and reduce risk of cardiovascular disease, FDA study finds

Food labels and dietary guidance help consumers make healthier choices and slim down, based on a report for the U.S. Food.

The FDA's Joanna Parks used data in the National Nutrition and health Examination Survey to estimate the effects of labels and help with the intake of 18 nutrients. She learned that people who used the Nutrition Facts panel on food labels consumed about 120 fewer calories each day, enough to clarify at the very least an 11-pound improvement in body mass between them and those who didn't utilize the information.

Clinics in 9 Appalachian counties will offer high-tech eye screenings to head off common ailment that blinds diabetics

Kentucky has single of the nation's highest toll of diabetes, but partly the diabetics in rural Kentucky don't cover twelve-monthly eye exams – even though near 30 percent of diabetics completed 40 cover diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of loss of sight amongst diabetic adults.

Watch out for specious claims about health-reform law in highly politicized debate

The greatest story within the state and nation will be Tuesday's opening of online health-insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, beneath the federal health reform law. "Obamacare" has become politicized from the beginning, and also the current debate has featured several specious claims that journalists should be on the lookout as they report, edit, present and choose commentary (including letters on the editor and person-on-the-street interviews) on the subject.

Mental-health issue

Almost a fourth of the inmates in Kentucky's prisons and jails have a very mental-health issue, and it's portion of an expanding national problem. "America's lockups are its new asylums," Gary Fields and Erica Phillips report to the Wall Street Journal. "After scores of state mental institutions were closed starting in the 1970s, few alternatives materialized. Most of the afflicted finished up around the streets, where, untreated, they became weaker to joblessness, drug use and crime."

Ky. Health Cooperative, a new kind of insurer, could help hold down rates and reshape the health-care system

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- A little-known but recipe part of federal physical condition reform twisted a modern kind of physical condition insurance -- a company to facilitate is neither known, like Medicare and Medicaid, or run representing profit, like traditional insurance companies. And the Kentucky Health Cooperative is offering coverage this week, with the opening of the state health-insurance argument.

Kentucky is solitary of 23 states with campaign the law designated as Consumer Operated and Oriented, or "co-ops," designed to collapse for-profit companies more competitive and foothold down toll.
Janie Miller (Associated Press photo)
The campaign own acknowledged more than $2 billion in federal loans to build themselves from nick, but own been operating largely under the radar.
"The co-op encode is an exceedingly little branded part of the Affordable Care Act," Kentucky Health Cooperative boss Janie Miller held in an interview with the Kentucky Health News. "It's been very intractable to comprehend fill with to understand come again? The co-op is and why they must think."

The Co-Op provision was a following compromise in the Affordable Care Act, industrial as an alternative to the "public option" of a government-run mean. "It's the bordering issue you can probably comprehend to a known option," held Miller. “We [cooperatives] are twisted to be the non-profit options in for the most part states… specifically representing the uninsured and under-insured. ”

writing in The New York Times

Ever since he resolute to enlarge Medicaid with money from the federal health-reform law, Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear has been telltale opponents of Obamacare to "Get ended it." Now, as Republicans be inflicted with made the law the stocking top in talks to keep the government commence and cover the inhabitant debt, Beshear has taken with the intention of arguing to an inhabitant audience.