JOAN LOWY, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Safety advocates worry that more drivers high on pot will lead to a big increase in traffic deaths as states liberalize their marijuana laws.

Researchers who have studied the issue are divided.

Marijuana can slow decision-making, decrease peripheral vision and impede multitasking — all those are important driving skills.

But unlike with alcohol, stoned drivers tend to be aware they’re impaired. And they try to compensate by driving slowly, avoiding risky actions such as passing other cars, and allowing extra room between vehicles.

Combining marijuana with alcohol appears to eliminate that caution and increase driving impairment beyond the effects of either substance alone.

Jonathan Adkins of the Governors Highway Safety Association says legalization of marijuana for recreational use in Colorado and Washington is a wake-up call for safety advocates.

 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City and the United Way of Greater Kansas City plan an October forum called the “Community Conversation on Health.”

The event is designed for KC metro residents who are uninsured, medically underserved, health care providers or in fields related to community health, such as education and law enforcement.

More than 300 people are expected for the event, which will be from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, at the Sheraton Crown Center.

During the event, participants will work in small groups led by trained facilitators. HCF and the United Way plan to use the information in their work with other foundations and community partners.

For more information or to register, visit kcconversation.org. For additional information on the event, contact the event director, Jennifer Wilding, at (816) 531-5078.

JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is sounding more bullish these days about the nation’s recovery from the Great Recession. And the White House is encouraging Democrats to show similar optimism as they head into the November mid-term elections.

Obama says — quote —”There are reasons to feel good about the direction that we’re headed.”

Despite turmoil in the Mideast and along the Ukraine-Russia border, the top issue with Americans remains the economy. And while consumer confidence appears to be improving, the public remains anxious over how strong the recovery is going to be.

On Monday, Obama will deliver a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he is expected to promote the economy in a state that was at the center of a fight over the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

COLUMBIA (AP) – A plea hearing is set for this week for a former Mamtek CEO accused of committing fraud in a failed effort to build an artificial sweetener plant in central Missouri.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that Bruce Cole is charged with one count of theft and four counts of securities fraud. Attorney General Chris Koster has accused Cole of diverting at least $700,000 from a bond fund established to finance the plant and using the money to forestall foreclosure of his Beverly Hills home.

Cole’s case is being heard in St. Charles on a change of venue and had been scheduled for trial in December. But a 1:30 p.m. Tuesday plea hearing was put on Judge Daniel Pelikan’s docket late Friday.

Cole’s attorney couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

By Andy Marso
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — The state’s privatization of Medicaid is complicating efforts to detect fraud and abuse, according to a recently released report from Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office.

The 2014 annual report from the attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Division says the three private companies managing the state’s $3 billion Medicaid program – called KanCare – are not providing all the information needed for the state to conduct investigations.
The report says since Kansas privatized its Medicaid program in 2013, the fraud unit has received incomplete and obscured claims data. In addition, transitioning the management of Medicaid from the state to three private companies has led to breakdowns in communication and forced fraud investigators to deal with three different sets of rules and procedures.

For the fiscal year that ran from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013, the fraud unit recouped a record $33.7 million in improper payments. But agents were already sending warning signs about the KanCare program that began rolling out in the second half of the year — concerns about inaccessible data, multiple manuals and the lack of referrals of potentially fraudulent claims by the managed care companies.

“While these are serious areas of concern at this point, it is anticipated they will be resolved over time,” the fiscal year 2013 annual report said.

The fiscal year 2014 report released last month shows collections dropping to $28.7 million and the areas of concern about managed care unresolved.

According to the latest report, each of the three KanCare companies — Amerigroup, Sunflower State Health Plan and United HealthCare — maintains its own database of claims information and then submits “a portion” of that data to a centralized database. But the data currently being made available to the unit “does not supply all of the information needed to complete a thorough review of the cases being investigated.”

In addition, the report says, sometimes critical information “is not being communicated” to the fraud unit by the KanCare companies.

It gives an example of an investigation that the unit was conducting without knowing that all three managed care organizations either had already investigated the same provider or were in the process of investigating it.

“This is information that would have been helpful to the unit, and potentially to the investigation,” the report says.

A spokeswoman for Sunflower State said the company declined to comment. Representatives of the other two managed care organizations did not respond by Friday to an email.

Legislative intervention ‘last resort’

Sen. Jeff King, R-Independence, said the problems identified in the fraud unit’s report are troubling but he’s not eager to see the Legislature force a solution.

“Certainly the Medicaid fraud unit has been one of the shining stars of our attorney general’s office and all of state government,” said King, the Senate Vice President. “We need to make sure they have all the information they need, while protecting patient privacy, to find Medicaid fraud.”

King said the attorney general’s office is working with the managed care companies on a solution. He said he’d prefer to let that process play out and viewed legislative intervention as a “last resort.”

“It’s something we will want to keep our eyes on in the months ahead,” King said.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment administers KanCare. Spokeswoman Sara Belfry said the agency also is working to address the problem.

“KDHE continues to work to identify improvements that can be made to the reporting and referral processes, and we continue to work to correct the encounter data and make it more user friendly for investigative purposes,” Belfry said via email.

Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services Secretary Kari Bruffett, who until June headed the health care finance division at KDHE, said the private companies are contractually obligated to help.

“Certainly part of the contract is for the MCOs to cooperate with the MFCU (Medicaid Fraud Control Units),” Bruffett said.

A.J. Kotich, a Democrat who is running against Schmidt, a Republican, for attorney general, said the latest Medicaid fraud unit’s report “raises serious concerns” and, if elected, he would use the full authority of the office to address them.

“The attorney general should be a leader and not a victim of self-imposed bureaucracy,” Kotich said.

A spokeswoman for Schmidt’s office said the fraud unit’s annual report “speaks for itself,” and the attorney general would not comment.
Not just a Kansas problem

Federal government watchdog agencies and a spokeswoman from a national Medicaid fraud investigators organization say the Kansas regulators are not alone.

As more states turn to private-sector managed care organizations to try to stem Medicaid costs, one of the byproducts is that investigators increasingly face extra barriers to the information they use to find fraud.

“It’s definitely not unique (to Kansas),” said Barbara Zelner, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Fraud Control Units. “It’s a situation with having managed care organizations involved with Medicaid reimbursements.”

Zelner said the challenges vary from state to state, and more information would be available upon review of how states have written their contracts with the managed care organizations.

“It’s something we’re trying to deal with, but it’s a very new phenomenon at this point,” Zelner said.

Medicaid served 71.7 million Americans in fiscal year 2013, at a cost of $431.1 billion. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that about 5.8 percent of that, or $14.4 billion, was improper payments.

The use of managed care, or capped per-beneficiary payments to health insurance contractors, has been increasing within Medicaid programs since the 1990s. Nearly every state has at least a portion of its Medicaid enrollees under managed care now. In 2013 and 2014, Kansas moved all of the state’s more than 400,000 Medicaid recipients under three private managed care organizations in KanCare.

According to the federal government, two-thirds of Medicaid beneficiaries receive at least some of their services from managed care organizations and, as of 2011, about 27 percent of the federal dollars put toward Medicaid went to managed care organizations.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office report published in May identified gaps in the tracking of Medicaid money that is filtered through the private organizations.
“Neither state nor federal entities are well positioned to identify improper payments made to managed care organizations (MCOs),” the report summary states, “nor are they able to ensure that MCOs are taking appropriate actions to identify, prevent, or discourage improper payments.”

A 2013 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General raised similar concerns about managed care. That report said that Medicaid Fraud Control Units nationwide were receiving fewer referrals of potentially fraudulent claims from managed care organizations than they would expect.

The inspector general’s report said that depending on how contracts are written, managed care organizations might have more incentive to drop a provider with suspicious claims from their networks than go through an expensive and time-consuming process of vetting those claims for fraud or abuse, especially if the managed care organizations were not contractually allowed to share in any proceeds recovered

PERRY, Kan- A teenage driver was injured in an accident just before 12:30 p.m. on Sunday in Jefferson County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2001 Ford Focus driven by Mariah Rose Young, 17, Perry, was westbound on U.S. 24 five miles east of Perry.

The driver of the vehicle drove off of the edge of the roadway, overcorrected and hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

The vehicle entered the south ditch, struck a telephone pole and rolled one time.

Young was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

The KHP reported she was not wearing a seat belt.

KANSAS CITY (AP) – Kansas City police say a man has been shot and killed during a confrontation with officers.

The shooting happened early Sunday after officers received a report about a suspicious person armed with a gun in the northeast party of the city. Police said in a news release that officers encountered the suspect, and shots were fired.

An ambulance crew pronounced the suspect dead. Police said an unknown handgun was found near the suspect.

Police say an investigation is underway. The name of the suspect wasn’t immediately released.