Tag: General Assembly
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Republican legislators keep hammering state officials and managed-care companies about Medicaid payment delays
Republican lawmakers reitarated this week that the companies managing Medcaid in Kentucky are still not paying health providers promptly. According to Sen. Joe Bowen, R-Owensboro, in the year since the...
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Haynes: Medicaid case managers threatened, and more bumps ahead, but state beginning to see advantages of new system
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News Some Medicaid case managers’ lives have been threatened because they have tried to get Medicaid patients to go to primary-care doctors instead of emergency...
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Medical licensure board changing rules to focus more on painkillers; fewer urine tests for patients, fewer reports for doctors
Patients in long-term treatment with controlled substances won’t have to have their urine tested for drugs unless they are on painkillers, and doctors will have wide discretion over how often...
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Over-the-counter drug makers start campaign to educate potential meth ‘smurfers’ about consequences of their actions
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News The lobby for makers of over-the-counter drugs, which has fought laws to tighten controls on sale of cold medicine that is used to make...
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UK study definitively shows that meth labs proliferate in state’s counties where pseudoephedrine sales are high
A University of Kentucky research study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week shows a direct correlation between pseudoephedrine sales and methamphetamine production in Kentucky counties....
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Board of Medical Licensure to amend pill-mill regulations to address concerns of doctors and some patients
The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure wants to change some of the more controversial requirements for urine screenings and digital monitoring in the state’s new prescription-drug regulations under the law...
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First lady speaks out on behalf of domestic-violence victims; Ky. is one of four states without protection for date-violence victims
First Lady Jane Beshear pointed out the accomplishments of the anti-domestic violence movement in Kentucky this week, and spoke the names of 26 women who had died at the hands...
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Republicans reject governor’s executive order creating health benefits exchange; move is only symbolic for now
Republican legislators voted yesterday against Gov. Steve Beshear’s executive order creating the Kentucky Health Benefits Exchange, required by federal health reform. Sen. David Givens of Greensburg offered a motion to...
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Some doctors find law to fight pill mills confusing and overreaching, and some say they will stop writing prescriptions
Dr. Kathy Nieder, with patient charts(C-J photo by Michael Clevenger) Dr. Ralph Alvarado’s medical practice in Winchester has prescribed controlled substances to 1,800 patients in Central Kentucky over the past three...
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Four pain clinics already closed as ‘pill mill’ bill takes effect; Beshear says nine more haven’t applied, will be investigated
By Tara Kaprowy Kentucky Health News Just days after new legislation has taken effect to combat prescription drug abuse, four pain clinics in Kentucky say they will close, Gov. Steve...