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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”