Bus into utility pole on St. Joseph Ave. Tuesday afternoon.
The driver of the school bus that crashed into a utility pole Tuesday afternoon on St. Joseph Ave. is in good condition according to hospital officials.
According to the St. Joseph Police Department, 57-year-old Philip N. Henderson of St. Joseph doesn’t recall the accident even taking place.
Henderson was transported by ambulance Tuesday after crashing his school bus into a utility pole in the 4100 block of St. Joseph Avenue around 4:20 p.m. Tuesday. No children were on the bus at the time of the accident.
SJPD Sgt. Richard Ketchem said Henderson did not seem to sustain any injuries from the crash but must have blacked out for an unknown medical reason. He said Henderson made no attempt to brake before his vehicle struck the pole. Bystanders on scene told the St. Joseph Post when they pulled Henderson from the bus he was unconscious, still buckled in and his foot was still on the accelerator.
Officials with Heartland Health told the St. Joseph Post Henderson is in good condition.
Photo by Nadia Thacker. Missouri Western tuition reimbursement poll rescheduled
Missouri Western State University Board of Governors has postponed a planned telephone poll to consider recommendations to refund tuition to students.
The board was supposed to meet this morning to consider the recommendation made by Western Administration to refund a 1.74% ($3.35 per credit hour) tuition increase charged to resident undergraduate students this fall and permanently remove the tuition increase going forward.
The result of the poll was expected to be ratified by the Board of Governors at its next regularly scheduled meeting.
Western said administration is continuing to gather information on the proposed tuition adjustment. Once the telephone poll is rescheduled the school plans to send out another noticed at least 24 hours before the vote.
Rep. Jenkins and Sen. Moran visit the Topeka VA this spring
By Andy Marso
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins and U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran are leading a congressional effort to delay enforcement of Medicare regulations requiring physician supervision of outpatient treatments like chemotherapy and intravenous infusions.
The rules are intended to improve patient safety. But Jenkins, Moran and several advocacy groups, including the Kansas Hospital Association, said they would burden rural providers without benefiting patients.
“It really has put a lot of burden onto the hospitals for supervision of services we just had historically done and had not had any quality issues,” said Tish Hollingsworth, the hospital association’s senior director of finance and reimbursement.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have enforced the physician supervision rule since Jan. 1. Hospitals that violate the rule risk losing Medicare reimbursement for the services provided.
Hollingsworth said her group was not aware of any hospitals being penalized yet.
“I have not heard that hospitals have had claims withheld or claims denied, because it is not the focus of any kind of audit right now,” Hollingsworth said. “But whenever there’s a regulation in place like that, we don’t know when it could become an issue.”
The U.S. House earlier this month passed H.R. 4067, co-sponsored by Jenkins, which would delay enforcement of the regulations until next year. Jenkins introduced the bill in February, but it moved slowly through the legislative process.
“Medicare policy change is not taken lightly by Congress, and bills like H.R. 4067 are a laborious process,” Tom Brandt, a spokesman for Jenkins’ office, said via email. “This bill was also in the jurisdiction of two separate House Committees – Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce. This made the process more complicated.”
The bill awaits action in the Senate, which passed similar legislation promoted by Moran earlier in the year.
Chad Austin, senior vice president of government relations for the hospital association, said those companion bills to delay the Medicare regulations are part of a “two-pronged approach” that also includes clarifying the regulations long-term.
The long-term fix, Austin said, is contained in Senate Bill 1143, which Moran introduced. It would, in part, clarify that the physician supervision required in the new regulations is consistent with other Medicare regulations that require critical access hospitals to have a physician able to respond within 30 minutes.
“While CMS believes they’re providing some guidance, there’s still some clarification from our perspective that needs to be resolved,” Austin said.
Specifically, Austin said, hospitals are unsure what level of physician supervision has to be provided to comply with the regulations.
Julie Brookhart, a CMS regional spokeswoman, said via email that for most of the outpatient therapies affected, the standard is “direct supervision,” in which “the physician or non-physician practitioner must be immediately available to furnish assistance and direction throughout the performance of the procedure.”
But some procedures call for modified levels of supervision, like “general supervision,” in which the “procedure is furnished under the physician’s overall direction and control but the physician’s presence is not required during the performance of the procedure” or “personal supervision,” in which the physician must be physically present in the room for the duration of the procedure.
CMS announced the rule in 2009 but exempted rural critical access hospitals until this year and made changes at those hospitals’ suggestion in the interim.
“We issued non-enforcement instructions of these requirements in critical access hospitals and small rural hospitals for a few years to allow them time to meet the requirements,” Brookhart said. “These non-enforcement instructions ended at the end of 2013. We are currently enforcing these requirements in these hospitals.”
Austin said because hospitals remain unsure what it means to have a physician “immediately available” under the direct supervision guidelines, Kansas’ 84 critical access hospitals should be protected from any attempts to recoup Medicare reimbursements related to such procedures until the rules are revised.
His group joined the American Hospital Association, National Rural Health Association and Anderson County Hospital in writing letters supporting the delay in the bill Jenkins co-sponsored.
Anderson County’s letter said that by applying the supervision rules even to hospital-employed practitioners in rural health clinics, CMS made it nearly impossible to comply.
Dennis Hachenberg, the hospital’s CEO, wrote that the CMS rule presented a “significant hardship and expense to rural hospitals.”
“It will limit the ability to provide our outpatients with basic therapeutic services such as IV infusions, initial antibiotic therapy, emergency cardiac drugs and blood transfusions,” Hachenberg wrote. “These are services that have been provided in rural communities safely through the years and will ultimately impact access to important services for the patients and communities we serve.”
PINE CITY, Minn. (AP) — Sheriff’s officials say a Pine County man accused of skipping a custody hearing and taking his two minor children without permission has been arrested in Kansas.
KARE-TV reports the 44-year-old father was pulled over in Kansas Wednesday morning for a minor traffic violation. He was arrested after an officer ran his license and discovered he’s wanted in Minnesota.
The man’s 12-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter were in the vehicle as well as two of his adult children. Pine County Sheriff Robin Cole says the younger children thought they were on vacation and didn’t know authorities were looking for them.
BELOIT, Kan. (AP) — AGCO Corporation officials say the company plans to lay off a total of 111 workers at its plants in Beloit and Hesston.
A statement from the corporate office in Georgia says the Hesston plant is in a second phase of job cuts, with 72 layoffs this week. Twenty-four jobs were cut in August. The Beloit plant will lose 39 hourly jobs.
The Hesston plant makes hay and harvesting products, while the Beloit plant produces mostly tillage tools.
The company said in a statement that the layoffs were the result of the cyclical nature of the agriculture economy.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Topeka police have found a woman’s body while detaining a man who was running around his neighborhood naked.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that neighbors called police Wednesday morning to report that the nude man was covered in blood and yelling as he ran up and down the street.
Police Lt. Chuck Haggard says it took several police officers to subdue the man and authorities eventually had to use a stun gun. The man was taken in an ambulance to a hospital for medical treatment.
The woman’s body was found at the top of a wooden wheelchair ramp leading to a home. Neighbors said the man lived with the woman.
A young girl was found uninjured at the scene and was placed in protective custody.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri lawyer accused of killing her father and his girlfriend has been ordered to remain in jail until she repays part of her father’s estate.
Susan Elizabeth Van Note, of Lee’s Summit, faces two counts of first-degree murder in the October 2010 shooting deaths of 67-year-old William Van Note and 59-year-old Sharon Dickson. William Van Note was hospitalized after the shooting and prosecutors allege his daughter forged durable power of attorney documents to persuade doctors to take him off life support.
The Jefferson City News-Tribune reports a Missouri appeals court said Tuesday that Susan Van Note sold several pieces of her father’s property as the representative of his estate. The court said she should remain jailed until she returns at least part of the estate.
Railroad regulators say some federal workplace safety standards should be extended to workers on and near the tracks.
The National Transportation Safety Board is issuing a draft report after investigating 15 deaths of railroad “roadway” employees in 2013. The number was up from eight in 2012 and five in 2011.
Among the report’s findings is that differences between regulations of the Federal Railroad Administration and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration can be confusing.
It recommends that the railroad administration include OSHA standards during job briefings for roadway workers.
It said causes of deaths included workers hit by trains, falls from bridges, electrocution and a mudslide.
Accidents such as train crashes and derailments were not part of the study.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The lawyer for a disgruntled Kansas Democratic voter says he’s considering his options as he faces a delay in getting a court to hear his lawsuit to force the party to name a new U.S. Senate nominee.
Attorney Tom Haney said Tuesday that voter David Orel of Kansas City, Kansas, was surprised by a state Supreme Court decision sending Orel’s petition to Shawnee County District Court.
Orel filed the petition last week after the Supreme Court allowed Democrat Chad Taylor to have his name removed from the Nov. 4 ballot in the race against Republican Sen. Pat Roberts.
The Supreme Court said Tuesday more evidence must be gathered in Orel’s lawsuit.
Taylor’s move was seen as helping independent candidate Greg Orman and putting the Kansas race in the national spotlight.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran has resigned from the Eisenhower Memorial Commission after serving for 13 years as one of the original lawmakers overseeing the effort to build a memorial in Washington honoring the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The commission announced Moran’s resignation late Tuesday. A spokeswoman for Moran did not immediately return a phone call and email seeking comment.
Millions of dollars have already been spent on securing a location near the National Mall and developing a design by architect Frank Gehry for a memorial park. It was supposed to be built by now but has been delayed amid a campaign against Gehry’s design and objections from Eisenhower’s family.
In June 2013, Moran called on the commission to endorse Gehry’s design, and the panel voted unanimously to move forward.