WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, recently introduced the Physician Ambassadors Helping Veterans Act. The legislation would enable volunteer physicians to serve in Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facilities that are struggling with appointment wait times or staffing shortages.

“The Physician Volunteer Ambassadors Helping Veterans Act will allow qualified physicians across the country to give of their time and expertise to help veterans struggling to access quality health care – whether a veteran has waited far too long for an appointment or medical services are not available close to where they call home,” Sen. Moran said. “At a time when veterans struggle to access quality health care, my hope is this legislation will offer physicians the opportunity to answer their own call of duty in service to veterans who deserve the best health care our nation has to offer.”

Though VA possesses the authority to allow physician volunteers to work in its VA medical facilities, bureaucratic red tape often prevents many physicians from volunteering their services. This legislation will make certain the VA uses its existing authority to support qualified physician volunteers from local communities who would like to dedicate a minimum of 40 volunteer hours per year. It would allow medical communities to help veterans, ease some of the pressure on permanent VA staff, and enable VA staff to regain their focus on providing quality health care to our veterans.

The legislation is supported by the Kansas Medical Society.

By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
Dec. 5, 2014
TOPEKA — A spokesperson for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services on Friday announced that federal officials had approved the agency’s plan for improving conditions at Osawatomie State Hospital.

The decision means the hospital’s Medicare payments will remain intact after Monday.

Earlier, federal officials had threatened to block a significant portion of the payments if the hospital failed to correct several deficiencies cited during a late October survey.

Federal surveyors returned to the hospital this week.

“As a result of the re-survey earlier this week, our two immediate jeopardy deficiencies have been lifted,” Angela de Rocha, a KDADS spokesperson, wrote in an email to KHI News Service.

KDADS is working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on a “plan of correction” for other deficiencies related to census issues at the 206-bed hospital, de Rocha said. KDADS will have 90 days to implement that plan.

Though the federal survey and the state’s correction plan have yet to be made public, de Rocha last month said that a “fire watch” had been initiated to address concerns raised by the Office of the State Fire Marshal.

The two “immediate jeopardy” issues, she said, involved the hospital’s nursing and pharmacy procedures.

For the hospital to have been cited for “immediate jeopardy” means the surveyors had reason to believe that patients’ safety and well-being were at-risk.

Osawatomie State Hospital is the larger of the state’s two inpatient facilities for adults with serious mental illnesses who’ve been deemed a danger to themselves or others. The other state-run mental health hospital is in Larned.

In recent months, patient admissions to Osawatomie State Hospital have reached record and near-record levels, causing dozens of patients to be triple-bunked in rooms meant for two.

On Tuesday, KDADS announced it was suspending voluntary admissions due to “ongoing and critical census challenges” at the 206-bed state hospital.

In keeping with a memo sent to the state’s 26 community mental health centers, the suspension will be in effect whenever the hospital’s census exceeds 185 patients.

Last year, according to KDADS records, the hospital’s census was below 185 patients for one day.

Typically, most patients who are involuntarily admitted to the hospital have been involved in encounters with police and have been found to be a danger to themselves or others. These admissions, oftentimes, are court-ordered.

Federal officials’ decision to accept the KDADS correction plan did not surprise the state’s mental health advocates.

The Osawatomie and Larned hospitals, they said, have long been understaffed, underfunded and overcrowded.

“Our hope now is that the 2015 Legislature will be supportive of the community-based solutions that we know are needed to avoid running into this crisis time and time again,” said Amy Campbell, a lobbyist for the Kansas Mental Health Coalition.

Patients who don’t have access to crisis intervention services in their local communities are one reason why the Osawatomie hospital has been above census, she said.

“The current leadership at KDADS is actively pursuing solutions – more community-based crisis-intervention services, more (substance abuse) treatment beds, more housing options,” Campbell said. “They’re steps, but they’re baby steps. The department is headed in the right direction, it’s just not moving fast enough.”

Rebecca Proctor, executive director at the Kansas Organization of State Employees, a labor union that represents many state hospital front-line workers, said her members were disappointed by the decision.

“Conditions there are not good for the residents and for people who work there,” Proctor said. “I can tell you this: If somebody who never worked in a state-hospital environment went to work at Osawatomie (State Hospital), they would very quickly come to the conclusion that conditions there are unacceptable.”

Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

BILL DRAPER, Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City police have confirmed that an SUV involved in the death of a teenager outside a Somali community center had an anti-Muslim message displayed in the rear window at the time of the crash.

Authorities say 34-year-old Ahmed H. Aden deliberately ran the boy over and have charged him with murder in a case that the FBI is investigating as a potential hate crime.

Fifteen-year-old Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein died at a hospital Thursday evening.

Kansas City police spokesman Darin Snapp told The Associated Press in an email that the SUV had been seen in the area by patrol officers in late October with a message that compared the Quran to the Ebola virus.

Aden was held in jail Saturday. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking on a free speech case over a proposed license plate in Texas that would feature the Confederate battle flag.

The case involves the government’s ability to choose among the political messages it allows drivers to display on state-issued license plates.

The justices said Friday they will review a lower court ruling in favor of the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The group is seeking a specialty plate with its logo bearing the battle flag, similar to plates issued by several other states that were part of the Confederacy.

The case will be argued in March.

MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — A new government report counts hundreds of times U.S. doctors and hospitals raised false alarms about possible Ebola cases, finding that fewer than one in five warranted even additional investigation.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report — released Friday — looked at Ebola-related calls the federal agency received this year from doctors, hospitals, and state and local health departments.

In most calls, it turned out the patient had neither traveled to an Ebola-affected country nor had contact with an Ebola patient.

Of 650 patients flagged to federal officials, four ended up testing positive.

But health officials say there was a national learning curve for Ebola — even for doctors and nurses — and they had no complaint about all the nervous phone calls.