KANSAS CITY – This video was fiilmed Tuesday from the GARMIN VIRB Action camera. It provides a look at the first ride down the Verruckt Waterslide at Schlitterbahn Waterpark.

Featuring waterpark designer Jeff Henry and ride engineer John Schooley, you will see the insanity that is responsible for the world’s tallest waterslide.

The Verruckt is not open to the public due to several delays in the design and testing phases.

 

 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts and Republican primary opponent Milton Wolf have both signed a pledge to fight for repeal of the federal health care overhaul.

But Wolf was getting credit Wednesday from the Washington-based conservative group behind the pledge for signing it first.

Independent Women’s Voice announced Tuesday that Wolf signed the pledge. It calls for blocking funding to administer the health overhaul and repealing the 2010 law championed by Democratic President Barack Obama.

The group announced Wednesday that Roberts also had signed the pledge and congratulated him on following Wolf’s action.

Both candidates have criticized the health care overhaul repeatedly while campaigning.

The primary is Aug. 5. Also seeking the GOP nomination are former mail carrier Alvin Zahnter, of Russell, and homemaker D.J. Smith, of Osawatomie.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas health officials delayed a new Medicaid service a day before it was scheduled to begin because it did not have enough contractors to cover the entire state.

The “health home” service was to provide case management for people with chronic medical conditions and those with severe mental illness.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment notified service providers Monday that the part of the program for the chronically ill would be delayed. It was to begin enrolling patients on Tuesday.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports the service for the mentally ill will continue.

Health department spokeswoman Sara Belfry says federal rules require the state to offer at least two providers before it can participate in the program, and Kansas did not have enough providers to meet that requirement.

 

DETROIT (AP) — Subaru is recalling more than 660,000 cars and SUVs because the brake lines can rust and leak fluid.

For about half the vehicles, it’s the second recall for the same problem.

Affected are 2005 through 2009 Legacy and Outback, the 2008 through 2014 Impreza and the 2009 through 2013 Forester. It affects cars only in 20 states and Washington, D.C., where salt is used to clear roads in the winter.

The company says in documents filed with the U.S. government that salty water can splash onto the brake lines through a gap in the fuel tank protector, causing rust. If they leak fluid, it could take longer to stop the car and increase the risk of a crash.

Dealers will replace the lines if needed and apply anti-corrosion wax.

SPRINGFIELD (AP) – An attorney for the suspect in the kidnapping and death of a 10-year-old Springfield girl is asking to have the trial moved out of Greene County.

Attorney Patrick Berrigan argued in a motion Monday that media coverage had made Greene County residents prejudiced against Craig Michael Wood, who is accused of raping and killing fourth-grader Hailey Owens in February.

Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson objected to the change, arguing that Wood could get a fair trial in Greene County.

The Springfield News-Leader reported Patterson also asked this week that the court require Wood to submit a handwriting sample. Prosecutors are trying to prove Wood wrote pornographic stories that were found in his home after Hailey’s body was found there.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Wood

GARNET, Kan- A truck driver is recovering in a Kansas City hospital after being injured in a Wednesday truck accident in Anderson County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2008 Volvo semi-truck and trailer driven by Peter Odion Okonofua, 43, Fort Worth, TX.,was northbound on U.S.169.

The truck went off the edge of the roadway for an unknown reason and over turned. Okonofua was transported to Anderson County Hospital and then transferred to St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City.

 

The KHP reported he was not wearing a seat belt.

By Mike Shields
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — Kansas Medicaid providers with expansion plans ready to go after spending months and thousands of dollars preparing for the state’s new health homes initiative said they were “shocked” and “disappointed” that state officials abruptly chose to indefinitely delay much of the program’s implementation while giving the providers less than 24 hours’ notice of the state’s decision to hit the pause button.

“We’ll just have to dismantle everything. I’m not sure it’s feasible to do it twice,” said Krista Postai, chief executive of the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas, a safety net clinic based in Pittsburg but with satellites in nearby towns. “That final-hour thing is really quite shocking. I’m not used to dealing with anything like this. This was a first for us.”

The clinic, after months of discussion, was planning a partnership with its counterpart in Johnson County. Together they would provide health home services in 18 eastern counties with the expectation they would serve thousands of chronically ill poor people with the wraparound services and close case management that are the hallmarks of health homes.
But that plan as of Monday afternoon began unraveling. Postai and other providers received a short email alerting them that officials at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment had decided that the part of the initiative dealing with Medicaid enrollees who are chronically ill with asthma or diabetes was being indefinitely delayed and would be re-evaluated as an option after Jan. 1, 2015, because there wasn’t an adequate network of providers to begin today as previously scheduled.

More than half the 72,000 people estimated to be eligible for the health homes program, which is paid for 90 percent by the federal government, are estimated to fall in that chronically ill category.

As late as last week, KDHE officials were still saying publicly that they planned to mail letters today to eligible, chronically ill Medicaid enrollees telling them they were going to be included in the initiative unless they opted out.

But apparently at the last minute, top officials at KDHE concluded there weren’t enough providers of the right types to launch the program statewide as initially planned. The portion of the program targeting Medicaid enrollees with serious mental illness, about 36,000 people, so far is proceeding on schedule with their notice letters sent this week and services beginning Aug. 1. The announcement marked the second major delay in the program, which administration officials originally had said would start Jan. 1 this year.

“The secretary along with everyone at KDHE is conducting readiness reviews on a regular basis to make sure our network was thorough. We concluded we really needed to do a better job on educating providers and to get more providers in the fold on this,” said Sara Belfry, an agency spokesperson. “We did communicate to (providers) that it was going to be delayed. We communicated as quickly as we could.”

But that turned out to be less than 24 hours’ notice.

“We were shocked to find out one day in advance that we weren’t going to have a program,” said Jason Wesco, chief executive of the Health Partnership Clinic in Olathe, the planned health homes partner with the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas. “I don’t know what the magic of January (the re-evaluation date) is. I don’t know that any more providers will be willing to jump in now. … The fact they pulled the plug on it makes me think it’s never coming back.”

Wesco said he had hired a project director for the health homes initiative and was interviewing people for five new care coordinator positions. Now, he said, he’ll cancel the new hires and try to figure out how he can afford to keep the new project director.

“I don’t make commitments to people I don’t keep, so I’m in the process of figuring that out,” he said. “She left a good job specifically to do this work. So, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do. I’ll figure out something.”

Other providers across the state also have hired new workers or were in the hiring process, and some leased or expanded space in anticipation of the initiative.

“We definitely think there’s going to be an impact on our clinics that have hired staff and have geared up to be trained ready to start in August, and with the pushback (indefinite delay) they’re definitely going to feel the impact of it,” said Katrina McGivern, a spokesperson for the Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved, the association that represents the state’s safety net clinics. “It did come as a big surprise to us.”

But some of the safety net clinics had already chosen a go-slow approach because they were uncertain what the future of the program might be.

“Our approach was that we were going to start with the patients that we were the primary care provider for and build the network out from there as we could. Thank goodness we took that approach,” said Bryan Brady, chief executive of First Care Clinic in Hays. “I think it’s strange how quickly it happened, because it was no sooner than we got off a webinar (about the health homes initiative) with one of the (KanCare managed care companies) that the email went out saying the chronic conditions model was being delayed. There was the webinar (Monday), then an hour later it was off.”

Belfry said KDHE still intends to proceed with the health homes program for the chronically ill, but not until the network of providers is sufficient to provide the full range of services in each county and with enough of them so that each enrollee will have a choice of at least two providers.

“It’s not really an if question,” she said. “It’s a when. We are going to do this. We have been looking at the health homes concept for years. We needed the readiness review to assure we had the providers in place. We didn’t feel we had the network adequacy.”

But state officials may find that the delay will only make it more difficult for them to bring providers on board because of the misfire, Postai and others said.

“If it comes up again, we’ll revisit (our plans to participate). But I’m not sure I’ll invest the energy level I did before because I can’t trust it will happen,” Postai said. “I’ve lost faith it will ever happen. We’re as close now as we’ve ever been. The momentum was built. My staff was enthused. I was enthused. It would have led to bigger and better things. But it is what it is, and something big obviously kept it from happening.”