Annual health ratings of states still puts Kentucky 44th

Kentucky ranks 44th among the 50 states in overall health in United Health Foundation's America's Health Rankings. Darla Carter of The Courier-Journal reports that while this is the same rating Kentucky achieved last year, the state is not without some high points. Among them, Kentucky is 9th best nationwide for its low incidence of binge drinking. We are to be congratulated as well for our low violent crime, high immunization coverage and improved high-school graduation rate.

Smoking continues to be where Kentucky fails miserably. Still worst, with 29 percent of the population as smokers, the state also faces an uphill battle with more than 1 million obese adults and a high rate of cancer deaths. The state also needs to continue to improve its ability to control the nation's highest rate of preventable hospitalizations.

The rankings are published by the United Health Group's foundation, along with the American Public Health Association and the Partnership for Prevention. Kentucky’s challenges include having the nation’s highest smoking rate, more than 1 million obese adults and a high rate of cancer deaths. See more on Kentucky's ratings here. (Read more)

First lady speaks out on behalf of domestic-violence victims; Ky. is one of four states without protection for date-violence victims

First Lady Jane Beshear pointed out the accomplishments of the anti-domestic violence movement in Kentucky this week, and spoke the names of 26 women who had died at the hands of their abusers this year. With that, she then announced that October would again be Domestic Violence Awareness Month in Kentucky.

“Nearly one-third of all American women report being abused at some point in their lives. Abuse affects more than just individuals -- families and communities suffer, too,” said Beshear. “Domestic Violence Awareness Month is the opportunity for all Kentuckians to learn how to recognize the signs of domestic abuse and to show support for victims as they work to regain control of their lives.”

Kentucky is one of only four states that do not provide protection for victims of dating violence. “In celebrating the successes of the Violence Against Women Act, we must acknowledge the work still left to do,” said KDVA President Anne Perkins, who also serves as executive director of Safe Harbor, a regional domestic violence program in Ashland.  She called on state legislators to pass a new dating violence bill during the next legislative session. Research shows that young women between the ages of 20 to 24 are at greatest risk of intimate partner violence.

Kentucky leads nation in drug-fraud prosecutions and settlements

Kentucky leads the U.S. in pursuing pharmaceutical fraud, according to a report by the Washington, D.C.-based consumer group, Public Citizen. Since 1991, the state has pursued the most claims against pharmaceutical companies and reached more than 30 settlements. It pursued 17 single-state settlements, the most of any state.

The most common violation was overcharging Medicaid programs for services, mostly for drugs, Beth Musgrave of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. The violations that netted the biggest penalties were for improper promotion of drugs. Attorney General Jack Conway oversees the Office of Medicaid Fraud and Abuse Control; his spokeswoman, Shelley Catherine Johnson, told Musgrave the agency has recovered or been awarded more than $265 million since Conway took office in January 2008. (Read more)

Chiropractic clinic to pay $650K for Medicaid and Medicare fraud

A chiropractic clinic in Williamsburg will pay $650,000 to settle claims it improperly billed Medicare and Medicaid, reports Trent Knuckles for The News Journal of Corbin. (News Journal graphic)

Ho Medical Clinic, Kenneth Ho and Ana Moreno allegedly filed false claims when they billed for physician services, though they were performed by a chiropractor (chiropractors are not medical doctors); billed for unnecessary and unreasonable MRI and X-ray services; billed for work performed by unqualified personnel; and received funds for being a rural health clinic when it did not meet Medicare requirements.

Of the $650,000, $525,000 will go to the Medicare and Medicaid trust fund. The remaining sum will go to Danette Freeman, who sued the company under the False Claims Act. The investigation was conducted by the Kentucky attorney general's office, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General and the U.S. attorney's office. (Read more)

Cyber predators have easier access to children because of phones, video games

Child predators have it easier than ever to entice their young victims, due to the ever-growing accessibility of the Internet. "It's a lot easier now than everybody has the Internet in their pocket," Lexington Police Detective David Flannery told Karla Ward of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Every day that we think of a way to combat it, people are thinking of a way to get around us," Flannery said. "It changes every day, and you have to keep up with it."

Using the World Wide Web to lure children for sex acts has skyrocketed since 1998, when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received 707 reports of people trying to entice children via the Internet. In 2008, there were 8,787 reports.

"Computers and cell phones remain the primary means of communication, but game systems including Xbox 360, Nintendo DS and Wii also can be connected to the Internet, giving predators another way to gain access to children," Ward reports.

Though parents are becoming more aware, more education is needed, said Erin May Roth, an assistant U.S. attorney and the Project Safe Childhood coordinator for the Eastern District of Kentucky. "What they don't really think about is the fact that their kids are going to sleep with their phone," she said.

Flannery is the only police officer in Lexington assigned full-time to investigate Internet crimes against children. While he does not go into detail about his methods to track down predators, the concept involves pretending. "Anything that a kid can do, we can do," Flannery said.

Sometimes officers from several agencies and departments work together. The Kentucky State Police administers an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the state attorney general's office has a similar unit, and, because cases can involve a number of jurisdictions, sometimes the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the U.S. Postal Service, the Secret Service and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement are involved.

Mother Frieda Curry, right, discovered her 14-year-old daughter was entangled with a 38-year-old man who initially pretended to be 16. She contacted the Richmond Police Department and found more than 40 text messages and 10,000 pages of messages and videos on the computer. "I was frantic," she said. "I was in the worst state I've ever been in." (Photo by H-L's David Perry)

But Curry, whose daughter is now in college, dealt with the problem and the predator was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 10 years in prison. Thinking about the crimes can be difficult, but "only by shining a light on the problem will we ever hope to find a solution for it," said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn. (Read more)

Ex-boss of defunct Jenkins personal-care home accepts federal plea deal; he and relatives still face state charges

"The former administrator of a Letcher County personal-care home that was recently shut down by the state pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to a charge that he took thousands of dollars from residents," Valarie Honeycutt Spears reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

James F. "Chum" Tackett of Jenkins accepted a prison sentence of two years and two days in prison, and agreed to repay $113,547 that he admitted embezzeling from the federal benefits of residents at the Golden Years Nursing Home. He still faces state charges, including felony theft. His daughter has been charged with failure to make required disposition of property, in relation to the home, and his grandson, who succeeded him as administrator, has been charged with bribing a witness and other felonies. (Read more) 

Almost all nursing homes have employees with criminal past, estimated 5% of employees; background-check bill seems dead

A new federal report says 92 percent of nursing homes employ someone with a criminal record. Most states require such facilities to check the backgrounds of applicants for employment, but the standards vary and some, such as Kentucky, do not check the backgrounds of those not involved in patient care, and a bill to extend that to them appears dead in the General Assembly.

"About 5 percent of nursing home workers—or one out of every 20—had at least one conviction, according to the report, which took a random sample of 260 nursing homes certified by Medicare and ran FBI background checks on their workers," reports Marian Wang of ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative news agency.

“The current system of background checks is haphazard, inconsistent and full of gaping holes in many states,” Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., chairman of the Senate Aging Committee, told The New York Times. “Predators can easily evade detection during the hiring process, securing jobs that allow them to assault, abuse and steal from defenseless elders.” The lack of national standards allows people convicted in one state to work in another—a more significant factor in states like Kentucky, which border several other states and have population centers on the borders.

Doctor's family killed by kidnappers, he sues the police for slow response

A sad and terrible story.

References:
'Petrified' mom seen minutes before death. CNN.

Home invasion victim's ordeal goes on. CNN.