health

Professionals from nine southeastern states who work with older adults will gather in Kentucky beginning Sept. 30. Louisville is the host city for the regional conference on aging that will offer 42 workshops on topics ranging from health concerns to social and community issues.

Barbara Gordon is director of social services for the Kentuckiana Regional Planning and Development Agency and is chairwoman of the conference. She said the pre-conference sessions on Sunday are open to public, including one reviewing the latest research on Alzheimer’s.

The number of people who gained insurance because of the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, was the largest in rural areas and small towns across the country. And Kentucky saw one of the biggest gains in health insurance in its small towns and rural areas.

According to a new report out this week from the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, prior to 2008 about 35 percent of people nationwide didn’t have health insurance; now, only about 16 percent of people don’t have coverage.

A legislative task force formed to address emergency diabetes needs in Kentucky met for the first time this week. The group, made up of legislators who are physicians, doctors, firefighters and more, met in Frankfort on Thursday.

Christel Aprigliano, chief executive officer of the Diabetes Patient Advocacy Coalition, presented to the task force. She said she’s experienced legal obstacles as a type 1 diabetes patient, but said Kentucky lawmakers could improve things.

A new report shows the number of Kentucky’s preschoolers who are obese dropped by about 5 percent between 2010 and 2014. However, the obesity rankings for the state’s high school students and adults were among the worst in the U.S.

According to the State of Obesity report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kentucky has the eighth highest adult obesity rate in the nation. The obesity rate for the state’s children ages 10 to 17 is the 14th highest in the country.

Last year more than 20 percent of the state’s high school students were obese. The adult ranking wasn’t much better. More than 34 percent of adults in Kentucky were obese in 2016.

Kentucky’s Department of Public Health launched a campaign to urge Kentuckians to prepare for disasters. It’s called “First 72 On You.”

“The first three days are pretty much when you’re more likely to be on your own, and you need to sustain yourself and your family before help can arrive,” said Heather Walls, Medical Reserves Core coordinator with the Kentucky Department of Public Health. “I would be able to sustain myself or my family in my home for 72 hours — I don’t have any big needs — but someone who has an elderly family member that needs dialysis, those are the people that emergency personnel respond to first.”

Owensboro is getting its first family medicine residency program.

The effort is a partnership between the University of Louisville School of Medicine and Owensboro Health and is scheduled to open in 2020.

The three-year program is expected to start with a class of six resident physicians and admit an additional six physicians each year.

A Daviess County pharmacist says the demand for Hepatitis A vaccine continues to grow in the face of a statewide outbreak.

Jigna Wilson, with Wilson Family Pharmacy in Owensboro, says her office is keeping busy filling requests for the vaccine from doctors’ offices and customers.

Wilson’s pharmacy is offering to take the Hepatitis A vaccine to the homes of customers who aren’t able to get out.

Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's administration could eliminate Kentucky's expanded Medicaid program to avoid a $300 million shortfall.

Former Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear expanded Kentucky's Medicaid program in 2014 under former President Barack Obama's health care law. The expanded program now covers more than 400,000 people.

Bevin opposed the expansion because he said it cost too much money and did not make people healthier. In January, the federal government gave Kentucky permission to impose work requirements on some Medicaid recipients. But a federal judge blocked the program.

A new non-profit group in Kentucky is advocating state health care tax reform as a way to fund the state’s Medicaid expansion.

Balanced Health Kentucky is asking state lawmakers to review all of the health care industries in the commonwealth, and consider how much they are—or aren’t—being taxed.

Kentucky expanded the number of people eligible for Medicaid in 2014 under then-Governor Steve Beshear, a Democrat.

The first class at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine campus in Bowling Green will be welcomed with a white coat ceremony Friday. The coating ceremony symbolizes the transition into medical school.

In 2016, the UK College of Medicine announced plans for regional campuses in Bowling Green, Morehead and Northern Kentucky. The Bowling Green campus is the first to open and will be a complete medical school program. Don Brown is the Assistant Dean at UK College of Medicine’s Bowling Green campus. He said the new institution will help address a physician shortage in the state, while providing new opportunities for Kentuckians.

Supporters of new marijuana laws in Kentucky are trying to get the word out about the positive effects they say cannabis can have on the state.

They’re holding an event Tuesday night in Henderson featuring information and speakers from several groups advocating change to Kentucky’s current marijuana laws.

Grace Henderson is the director of the Kentucky Cannabis Freedom Coalition chapter in Henderson.

A new poll shows a significant drop in the number of Kentucky adults who say they’ve been prescribed pain pills.

The Kentucky Health Issues Poll says 34 percent of adults in the state say they got prescriptions for pain medicine over a five-year period leading up to, and including, 2017.

That’s a drop of 21 percentage points from a similar poll taken in 2011.

A new study says having a state-based individual health insurance mandate in place next year would greatly benefit Kentucky.

Congress eliminated the individual health insurance mandate contained in the Affordable Care Act, effective in 2019.

The study by the Urban Institute and Commonwealth Fund estimates having a state-based mandate would mean premiums payed by Kentuckians next year would be 17 percent cheaper compared to what those costs would be without a mandate in place.

More than 2,000 Kentuckians will have to pay more to receive Medicaid benefits that help them avoid nursing homes. The news comes after state officials said they’ve been charging the incorrect amount for over half a decade.

The change is scheduled to take effect on August 1 and applies to people with disabilities who receive at-home and community-based Medicaid services in Kentucky and make more than $750 per month.

Kentucky Health Cabinet officials say that for more than 5 years, the state hasn’t been collecting the correct amount for the “patient liability”— the amount beneficiaries have to pay every month.