Author: Al Cross
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Chart shows how to get coverage under federal health reform
The core of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is helping people get health insurance, beginning next year. That will be relatively simple for some people, but complicated for...
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UK has its pediatric heart program under review; chief is on leave, and patients are being referred to other hospitals
Kentucky Children’s Hospital at the University of Kentucky is reviewing its cardio-thoracic surgery program and referring surgical patients to other hospitals, “but the reasons why are unclear,” Brenna Angel reported...
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Generic OxyContin and Opana, headed for market soon, could make fight against pain-pill abuse tougher, McConnell says
With generic versions of the two most commonly-abused painkillers, Opana and OxyContin, coming on the market next year, police, hospitals and health clinics in Kentucky have voiced concern that “these...
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Group of 550 doctors in Central Ky. leaving Medicaid’s Coventry
A Lexington-area network of doctors says it will no longer contract with Coventry Cares, a Medicaid managed-care company, after Coventry said “it would begin to pay less than the established...
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Deaths from drug overdoses in Kentucky hit new high in 2010; more than half involved prescription drugs
Deaths from drug overdoses in Kentucky jumped to a new high in 2010, and “rose a staggering 296 percent from 2000 to 2010,” Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. “A...
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State Auditor Edelen faults Bluegrass mental-health agency for executive compensation, lax management and board oversight
The Bluegrass Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board, a nonprofit agency that gets two-thirds of its money from taxpayers, “paid more than $2.8 million in executive-benefit contributions since 1997 to the...
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U.S. teens’ cigarette use drops to a new low, but use of alcohol goes up a bit and more 12th graders are smoking marijuana
Teenagers’ cigarette smoking dropped to a record low this year but alcohol use rose slightly after seven years of decline, according to a survey of 45,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-...
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Feds tell states it’s all or nothing on Medicaid expansion; Washington Post map shows Ky. is only state ‘leaning’ toward it
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News When the Supreme Court upheld federal health reform but said states could opt out of the expansion of Medicaid to people with incomes above...
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Managed-care doctor creates process to steer pregnant Medicaid recipients who are using dangerous drugs into treatment
When Dr. Jeremy Corbett of Lexington found that “nearly one in five pregnant women enrolled in the Medicaid managed-care program where he works were using narcotics or other harmful drugs,” he...
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Many Ky. parents don’t realize children are overweight, or won’t acknowledge it, but many report kids’ poor health behavior
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News Many Kentucky parents don’t realize that their children are obese or overweight, or at least aren’t willing to acknowledge it. That is the obvious...