legislation

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Pharmacy Choice

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer today launched a major effort to urge his colleagues in both the Senate and House of Representatives to immediately pass the Physician Shortage Act of 2017. Schumer explained that this critical legislation will add 15,000 more Medicare-supported residency training slots for doctors, helping to ensure teaching hospitals can train enough physicians to meet the growing demands for physicians as our nation is already in the midst of a doctor shortage. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the U.S. is expected to face a shortage of up to 43,100 primary care physicians and 61,800 specialty physicians by 2030…

…Additionally, a recent major report for the Center for Health Workforce Studies (CHWSNY) found that providers are unevenly distributed across New York, with the Southern Tier often having far fewer physicians than it needs.

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Lexington Herald Leader

FRANKFORT – The oral health of Kentucky’s school children is worsening, even though more of them are covered by dental insurance today than 15 years ago.

A new report was presented Wednesday to the state’s legislature’s Interim Health and Welfare Committee, following on an earlier statewide study conducted in 2001. The report’s authors found that 41 percent of third- and sixth-graders surveyed by a dentist had at least one untreated cavity. In Eastern Kentucky, that figure rose to 53 percent, amounting to about 15,100 children in immediate need of a filling.

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DiagnosticImaging.com – Editor’s Corner

I recently sought to find a new primary-care physician ‘who’s located closer to where my wife and I live.

It ended up being a lot harder than I thought. Either doctors don’t take our insurance, aren’t taking new patients, or just don’t have 15 minutes to spare in the next few months.

The primary-care physician shortage is real, people. I am sure you didn’t need me to tell you that, but it’s interesting to experience firsthand an issue that we seem to talk about every day.

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Kentucky Center for Economic Policy

The proposed changes to Kentucky’s Medicaid expansion include the elimination of dental coverage from the package of benefits for adults. Reducing access to dental care would likely lead to other, more serious health problems and cost the state more in overall Medicaid spending through greater use of emergency room services. Dental care makes up a small portion of the overall budget, but is a very efficient preventative medical service that is critical in Kentucky given our poor oral health.

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The Pew Charitable Trusts

Poor dental health continues to be a problem throughout Kentucky, but the situation is particularly severe for low-income residents, people living in rural areas, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with special needs, according to a report released on Feb. 24 2016 by the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany.

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Kentucky Health News

More Kentuckians than ever have access to dental care because of Medicaid eligibility for dental insurance, and the state has made some gains in oral health, but finding a dentist can still be a problem, especially in rural Kentucky. And even though children on Medicaid have dental insurance, more than half of them don’t get any dental care.

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The Detroit News

I have long been a proponent of legislation and policy that would expand the scope of practice for many health professionals. This means a different way of approaching our health care professionals, putting more emphasis on unique skills and roles within a health team rather than relying on traditional titles and legacy exclusiveness of a particular degree.

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