Author: Melissa Patrick
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Obama joins Rogers at National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit, says it’s time to focus on treatment over incarceration
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News The fifth annual national summit on prescription drug abuse, started by U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, was the largest, broadest and highest-profile yet....
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Kenton County’s approval of a needle exchange inches Northern Kentucky, hit the hardest by heroin, toward getting one
The Kenton County Fiscal Court unanimously approved a mobile needle exchange program March 29, which moves the City of Covington’s needle exchange program one step closer to fruition, Terry DeMio...
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Ky. Republicans like Indiana Medicaid plan, but head of Medicaid directors’ group says Ind. isn’t far enough along to be a model
Gov. Matt Bevin and other Republicans have said they want to make Kentucky’s version of Medicaid look like Indiana’s, but a leading Medicaid official says that Indiana’s program hasn’t proven...
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Survey of Cincy-area students, including some in Kenton County, finds pot and vaping more popular than cigs; drug use down
Students in Greater Cincinnati, including Northern Kentucky, are more likely to use marijuana and electronic vapor products than cigarettes, according to a drug-use survey of students in the region. Graph...
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Boyd, Clark counties approve needle exchanges; Boyd’s is a limited, one-for one; Covington’s proposed limits draw objections
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Clark and Boyd counties are the ninth and 10th Kentucky counties to approve a needle-exchange program, and Madison and Anderson counties are talking about it....
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At top legislative Republican’s invitation, Democrats embrace Obamacare, or at least Kynect and Beshear’s Medicaid expansion
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News With a verve for Obamacare most had not publicly demonstrated, state House Democrats passed bills March 22 to preserve the Kynect health insurance exchange...
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Full House has Senate bill to regulate how druggists dispense ‘biosimilar’ medication that hasn’t even been approved by FDA
Update: SB 134 passed the state House 96-0 March 23 with a floor amendment that allows communication by fax, telephone, electronic transmissions or other prevailing means by the pharmacist to the provider to...
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Bills to preserve Kynect and Medicaid expansion head for votes in Democratic House despite a likely death in Republican Senate
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Bills to continue the Kynect health-insurance exchange and the state’s current expansion of the federal-state Medicaid program passed out of the House Health and...
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Annual County Health Rankings for Kentucky show many shifts in the middle echelons, not much at the top and bottom
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News The sixth annual County Health Rankings report shows little change in Kentucky’s top and bottom rankings, but there were a few surprises, with several...
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More Kentucky patients are recuperating in their local, rural hospitals after surgery in an urban hospital
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Rural residents are increasingly being transferred out of big urban hospitals to recuperate in rural hospitals, many of which are struggling financially and can...