Kentucky receives an F grade for its low funding of mental-health services; supply falls short of demand

Kentucky's supply of mental-health services is much lower than demand for those services, in terms of state funding, and the state spends only 45 percent of the national average in mental-health funding per person.

In 2010, Kentucky dedicated about $232 million to mental-health services, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is $54 per person, compared with a U.S. average of $121 that year. That ranks Kentucky among the bottom 10 states without including individual mental health reimbursements for Medicaid, reports Chris Kenning of The Courier-Journal.

The state's Medicaid rates for mental-health services haven't been raised substantially in years, and only a fraction of mental-health facilities offer residential treatments, reports Kenning. He also reports the most recent “Grading the States” report of the National Alliance on Mental Illness gave Kentucky an F in 2009. The group considered measures such as the number of programs using evidence-based practices and the number of psychiatric beds.

Kentucky officials cite new efforts to improve care, such as partnering with the University of Kentucky at a new Eastern State Hospital that will open soon, and pursuing a change to allow Medicaid funding of community outpatient teams, reports Kenning. Kentucky also funds 14 regional community mental-health centers, which served 160,000 people last year, and there are 179 mental-health facilities, which include 40 offering residential care, reports Kenning.

Yet, these efforts fall short of providing mental health services for those Kentuckians in need.  In 2011, a surprisingly high 42 percent of Kentucky adult females and 31 percent of Kentucky males reported having poor mental health. Experts estimate that one in four people will suffer from some form of mental illness in a given year, which is nearly 1.1 million people in Kentucky, Kenning reports. 

It is critical for Kentucky officials to examine this issue in light of the Department of Health and Human Services rule that included mental-health benefits and treatment of substance-abuse disorders as part of the 10 "essential health benefits" insurance plans must provide when federal health reform takes full effect next year. HHS estimates it will expand mental-health and substance-abuse treatment benefits to 62 million Americans, and there is already a shortage of such services in Kentucky.

Essential-benefits rule expands mental-health and substance-abuse coverage; Ky. needs more facilities to treat newly eligible

The Department of Health and Human Services has defined the 10 "essential health benefits" insurance plans must provide, and it included benefits for mental health and treatment of substance-abuse disorders..

Nearly 20 percent of Americans don't have access to mental-health services and over 30 percent have no coverage for substance-abuse treatment. This rule will expand mental health and substance-abuse treatment benefits to 62 million Americans, according to HHS.

Expanded coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment programs in Kentucky could bring about a dramatic shift in the delivery of these services. There is already a shortage of treatment options and centers for Kentuckians, and those suffering from addiction have not had coverage for such treatment; the proposed rule will change that.

Recovery Kentucky, a public-private partnership with residential facilities, was created to help Kentuckians recover from substance abuse. It has 10 centers, in Campbellsville, Erlanger, Florence, Harlan, Henderson, Hopkinsville, Morehead, Owensboro, Paducah, and Richmond, according to the 2012 Justice & Public Safety Cabinet report, which included the map below. 

Health-insurance plans must cover the 10 essential benefits beginning in 2014, so the state must prepare for the newly insured in addition to newly covered services. The rule defines what must be covered in insurance plans and bans discrimination based on age or pre-existing conditions. Among the core package of items and services, known as “essential health benefits" are items and services in the following categories:

1. Ambulatory patient services
2. Emergency services
3. Hospitalization
4. Maternity and newborn care
5. Mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment
6. Prescription drugs
7. Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices
8. Laboratory services
9. Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management
10. Pediatric services, including oral and vision care

States are given flexibility in implementing the federal health-care reform law with a benchmark approach. The Kentucky Department of Insurance has recommended that the Anthem Preferred Provider Organization plan serve as the “benchmark” plan for the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange. HHS will review the recommendation and accept public comments prior to making a final decision. (Read more)

Prescription-painkiller epidemic is spurred by societal shift, experts say: People think every problem has a pill for an answer

By Molly Burchett
Kentucky Health News

The prescription-painkiller epidemic stems partly from an evolution of society's views toward pain and how to deal with it, said experts at "The Different Faces of Substance Abuse" conference in Lexington Jan. 23-24.

"The entire society's viewpoint of pain and the management of pain has completed shifted," said Dr. Ryan Stanton, an emergency physician and conference panelist.

Pain is considered the fifth vital sign, after temperature, pulse, blood pressure and respiratory rate, but it is the only sign that is subjective, which complicates the problem, said Stanton, because patient satisfaction is associated with the amount of drugs the provider prescribes. If an emergency-room doctor suggests exercise to combat back pain, he said the patient's reaction might be, "You might as well ask a man to deliver a baby."

The substance-abuse problem shouldn't be laid at the feet of prescribers because patients think there is a pill out there for every problem when sometimes the answer is non-prescription ibubrofen and an ice pack, said Van Ingram, executive director of the state Office of Drug Control Policy.

"This is a complicated issue," Ingram said. "It's easy to be against heroin, and it's easy to be against cocaine. But prescription opioids are things that many people need to live and need to improve their quality of life at the end of life."

Patients need to understand how much a doctor can or should do, said Dr. Helen Davis, conference panelist and chair of the Gov. Steve Beshear's KASPER Advisory Council. "Patients come in to the doctor's office expecting a silver bullet . . . but when looking at pain, the goal isn't to make the patient pain-free," she said. "The goal is to reduce the pain enough that they can have systematic and functional relief to go about their daily living."

Davis said doctors and nurses must change their culture to become more collaborative with the patient to address the non-pharmacological management of pain. There are some things that are the responsibility of the provider and there are some things that are the patients', families' and communities' responsibility, she said, adding that all professionals must look at their interdisciplinary responsibility to the people of the state.

Kentucky Health News is an independent service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

Experts explain changes to state prescription-tracking system

By Molly Burchett
Kentucky Health News

The Kentucky All-Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting system, the key to fighting doctor-shopping for painkillers in the state, has undergone several changes since the legislature passed House Bill 1 last year to crack down on so-called pill mills. An expert panel at "The Different Faces of Substance Abuse"conference last week in Lexington addressed the more recent changes to KASPER.

“The new legislation has brought prescription drug use into the medical arena when it had not been before,” said Dr. Michelle Lofwall, member of the KASPER Advisory Council, created last year by Gov. Steve Beshear.

Very soon Kentucky will be sharing KASPER data with all seven border states, which will be provided automatically in reports, and all agreements to enable this exchange have already been signed, said Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy.

One important but little-reported change is that KASPER reports can now be included in patients’ medical records. Prior to the passage of HB1, this was a felony and created workflow problems for physicians.

Attorney General Jack Conway has steered money from a mortgage settlement to enable the necessary system upgrades to KASPER that will bring about additional changes, said Ingram. Starting in July, dispensers of drugs will be required to report data every 24 hours instead of the current weekly timeframe, improving the timeliness of the data.

Changes are also coming to the regulations associated with HB1, since medical licensure boards have “gotten an earful” and have revisited the regulations to make them more straightforward and common sense, KASPER program manager Dave Hopkins said.

Ingram said, “With any big policy change, there are going to be unintended consequences. . . . The legislature will take a look at the unintended consequences. If you want to make drastic changes, it’s going to be chaos for a while.”

“In a lot of things with government, great ideas are complicated by reality,” said Dr. Ryan Stanton, UK Good Samaritan Hospital emergency-room physician and medical director, as he painted a more realistic picture of KASPER from when he first created an account with the system in 2005.

Stanton said recent changes have included timelier and more accurate reports that make the system easier to use. He said more such improvements are critical to catch those who "abuse in spurts," and are also important because physicians have minimal time and need to spend more time with patients instead of in front of a computer.

The use of KASPER has increased significantly since the passage of HB 1, with the number of reports requested increasing from 811,000 in 2011 to 2.69 million in 2012.

Medications containing the painkiller hydrocodone, including Lortab, Lorcet and Vicodin, remain the most-prescribed type of controlled substance in Kentucky, 41.5 percent of the total.

Click here for more information about KASPER.

Kentucky Health News is an independent service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

N. Ky. Chamber to ask state for more funding to fight heroin; London police make first known heroin trafficking arrests there

The Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce is planning to lobby the state for more funding for heroin treatment after receiving reports from business and law enforcement about the breadth and depth of the drug problem in the region. Terry DeMio of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the chamber's Geraldyn Isler says the area has the “highest volume of people in the state needing substance abuse treatment but is receiving the least amount of funding.”

According to the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force, 63 percent of heroin possession and trafficking prosecutions in Kentucky are in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties, the three urbanized counties in the region. A 2007 University of Kentucky study that shows that the region led the commonwealth in people needing substance abuse treatment, but that it also received the lowest per capita funding from staff coffers for those mental health services for more than a decade.

The chamber told DeMio there are many "hidden costs" to such abuse. Among those costs: increased employee absenteeism, tardiness, job-related injuries and errors. It also notes employee-employer conflict, greater health-insurance costs and crime as likely outcomes of heroin in the region.  (Read more)

There could be other requests for more funding for heroin treatment. This week the London Police Department made the first known arrests for heroin trafficking in Laurel County, The Sentinel-Echo reports.

More child-welfare indicators added to Kids Count data site

Kentucky Youth Advocates has added four new child welfare indicators to the agency's Kids Count Data Center. These four new indicators provide Kentuckians and those who report on them with more information on vulnerable children and families in the state.

One new indicator shows the prevalence of certain risk factors -- substance abuse, mental health issues, and income -- in cases where child abuse or neglect was found to have occurred after an investigation was done. Another new indicator include the numbers of children community members bring to the attention of the state Department for Community Based Services due to suspicions of child abuse or neglect. (Read more)

Kids Count provides information across states and for Kentucky counties and school districts on many measures of child well-being, including economic well-being, education, health, and safety. To find the data center, go here.

After two days with doctors at work, Herald-Leader columnist wonders about patients and future of health-care system

Tom Eblen

Tom Eblen, the Lexington Herald-Leader's local columnist and former editor, spent two days shadowing doctors last week and lived to tell about it. Part of the Lexington Medical Society's Mini-Internship Program, Eblen was given a close-up look at the working lives of physicians and the world in which they, well, operate. He found himself alongside an orthopedic surgeon replacing shoulders, doing fascinating retinal work with an caring opthalmologist, in an emergency room on a slow day and with a busy internal medicine specialist. He learned more than confirming he had probably made the correct career choice, he writes.

In the emergency room: "A middle-aged man with a history of heart trouble came in with chest pains. An elderly man came in suffering from dizziness. A young man came in with an infection from a mouth full of rotten teeth. Like more than one-quarter of all Kentuckians, the young man and several other people Wooster saw that day had no health insurance. What people forget when they debate the cost of universal coverage is that society already pays for treating uninsured people, often at high-cost emergency rooms. . . .

"As I shadowed these physicians, I kept thinking how much of their patients' pain and suffering could have been avoided if they had taken better care of themselves — if they had eaten better, gotten more exercise, and avoided cigarettes and substance abuse. I wondered how we will continue to manage not only our health care system, but our rising expectations. As people live longer and get sicker, we may need to focus more on quality of life rather than simply extending it at all costs." (Read more)

State task force will look at substance abuse, mental health care for military members, veterans and families

To help the increasing number of veterans and military service personnel who are needing treatment for substance abuse and mental health issues in Kentucky, a task force has been assembled to come up with strategies that show the most promise in providing care.

The team, made up of military personnel as well as health care experts, will go to a conference in Washington, D.C., to gain learn what is working elsewhere. The goal is to strengthen statewide behavioral health care systems and services, a press release from Gov. Steve Beshear's office says.

Over the past three years, the number of veterans seeking mental-health care has risen dramatically, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. About 335,000 veterans live in Kentucky. There are also 45,000 active-duty personnel in Kentucky and about 8,400 members of the Kentucky Army National Guard and Kentucky Air National Guard.

"This is an extremely important and timely topic that requires collaboration across federal, state and local lines," said Col. David Thompson, executive director of the Kentucky Commission on Military Affairs. Task force members include Thompson; Maj. Gen. Edward W. Tonini, Kentucky adjutant general; state Rep. John Tilley, D-Hopkinsville; representatives from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs, military and civilian health facilities and the Kentucky court system. (Read more)

Funding substance-abuse treatment for Medicaid recipients could help 6,000 people, official says

If the budget proposed by Gov. Steve Beshear is passed, 6,000 Kentuckians on Medicaid could be treated for substance abuse, ultimately saving the tax system hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That was the message Monday during a House budget subcommittee on health and human services hearing. "All of the research shows that this is a smart thing to do," said Stephen Hall, commissioner of the Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities.

Treating a person with intensive drug addiction services costs $2,500. But an adult who is not treated costs taxpayers more than $23,000 in prison and other costs, Hall said.

Kentucky is "one of only seven states that does not offer substance-abuse treatment in its Medicaid program," reports Beth Musgrave for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Beshear has proposed an expansion of drug addiction services in his two-year budget, one of few new spending projects. He is requested $11.6 million in the first year of the budget, which would help about 4,500 people. He wants another $14.9 million in the second year of the budget to help about 1,300 people. Kentuckians who are eligible for Medicaid and who have a mental illness and substance-abuse problems will have priority in the program, as will those with substance-abuse issues and custody of a minor child.

Though "many on the House budget committee applauded the move," Musgrave reports, at a time when state agencies are facing 8.4 percent cuts, the spending project is a hard sell. "It's difficult to start any new programs," said Sen. Robert Leeper, an Independent of Paducah and chairman of the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee. (Read more)

Kentuckians binge drink more often than residents of any other state, national survey for federal health agency finds

By Tara Kaprowy
Kentucky Health News

Kentuckians binge drink an average of about six times per month, more often than people living in any other state, a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

Binge drinking is defined as consuming four or more drinks for women and five or more drinks for men on one occasion. Nationwide, 17 percent of adults binge drink, up from 15 percent in a 2009 survey. That's one in six people, averaging four binges a month and eight drinks per binge (CDC graphic).

Excessive and binge drinking "causes more than 80,000 deaths in the United States each year, making it the third leading preventable cause of death," reports MSNBC. Binge drinkers are at an increased risk for liver disease, heart disease, of being in a car accident and engaging in violent behavior.

The report analyzed data from a 2010 telephone survey of 458,000 adults who described their previous 30 days of drinking. "Although the percentage of people reporting binge drinking was highest among young people, it was binge drinkers ages 65 and older who over-consumed the most often: this group reported an average of five to six episodes a month," MSNBC reports.

Though Kentuckians binge drink most often, residents of Wisconsin drink the most alcohol — up to 9 drinks on one occasion — and had the highest percentage, 25.6, of people who said they binge drink. Utah and West Virginia has the lowest share of people who say they binge drink, 10.9 percent. New Jersey had the lowest frequency, 3.6 times per month. (Read more)

Meanwhile, a study found drinking alcohol leads to the release of endorphins in parts of the brain that are responsible for feelings of pleasure and reward, says research-reporting service Newswise. "This is something that we've speculated about for 30 years, based on animal studies, but haven't observed in humans until now," said lead author Jennifer Mitchell, clinical project director at the Gallo Center at the University of California-San Francisco. "It provides the first direct evidence of how alcohol makes people feel good."

Excessive alcohol consumption costs the country about $223.5 billion per year, "mostly due to lost workplace productivity and increased health care costs," reports Sarah Kiff for The Washington Post. (Photo by Uselei Marcelino, Reuters)

A study by Canadian researchers has found that setting a minimum alcohol price can drive down those costs — and is more accepted by the public than imposing taxes. The researchers found "for every 10 percent hike in minimum alcohol price, they found people drank 3.4 percent less alcohol," Kiff reports. "For certain drinks, the effect was even more pronounced: Increasing the minimum price of wine by 10 percent correlates with an 8.9 percent drop in consumption. Beer, however, appeared relatively resilient to price fluctuations, with a 10 percent bump lowering consumption a paltry 1.5 percent."

England and Wales have passed legislation that prohibits the sale of below-cost alcohol. Scotland is considering a similar move. (Read more)

Kentucky Health News is a service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

Workshop Aug. 4-5 will help health groups with policy, programs

A two-day workshop intended to help health coalitions and organizations make progress at the policy level and implement evidence-based programs will begin Aug. 4.

On the first day, speaker Monte Roulier of Community Initiatives will speak about the art and science of building health and whole communities. On the second day, speakers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will demonstrate how to use The Community Guide, a free resource that offers guidance on what programs and policies are evidence-based for obesity, mental health, asthma, tobacco, substance abuse, violence and other health issues.

The workshop is part of the "Health for a Change: Ignite — Unite — Act" series, a program of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. It starts at 10 a.m. Aug. 4 and ends at 4 p.m. Aug. 5. at the Hurstbourne Place Office Building in Louisville. To register, click here.

Parents should talk to children about drugs and alcohol often, and firmly, but spend more time listening

Talking about drugs and alcohol often, and when children are at a young age, are two of the best things parents can do to prevent substance abuse by teenagers.

"As much as parents want to be the 'anti-drug,' as media campaigns encourage, the tricky part is doing it effectively, without alienating their kids or essentially lighting a joint for them," reports Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz of the Chicago Tribune.

One of the keys is to have conversations often and early on. "What you don't want is to be having this conversation after your child has already started drinking or smoking marijuana," said J. David Hawkins, founding director of the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington.

Nationwide, 71 percent of high school graduates have consumed alcohol, half have gotten drunk at least once, almost half have tried illegal drugs, and one-fourth have tried illegal drugs other than marijuana, the 2010 Monitoring the Future survey found. The annual poll, conducted by the University of Michigan, talked to 50,000 American teens.

Kentucky teens under 18 are among the least likely to drink alcohol of teens in the nation, the 2007-08 National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed. Kentucky teens ranked 10th lowest, but were nearly on par with the national average when it came to binge drinking. (Read more)

The workshop "Guiding Good Choices" gives lessons to parents in how to deal with the issue. It advises parents to talk to their kids about drugs before adolescence, preferably when they're in the fifth or sixth grade. Parents should talk to their kids about people in their family that may have drinking or drug problems and how that affects them. They should set a family policy on drugs or alcohol and establish consequences. And they should plan to have the conversation every year.

Teens generally obey rules until they reach the eighth grade, when it becomes unclear to them whether or not drugs and alcohol are actually bad. Alison Birnbaum, a psychotherapist and social worker based in New Canaan, Conn., said talking about drugs is only 20 percent talking, and 80 percent listening, but parents should be firm. Parents should make clear they will be disappointed if the rules are broken.

Safety First, a teen drug-prevention project, advocates "Just Say Know," rather than "Just Say No." It provides kids with science-based information and asks parents to be honest, if selective, about their own history with alcohol and drugs. "Parents often worry that they're condoning drugs if they're not condemning them, but ... acknowledging the possibility that your kids might experiment sets you up to discuss what they should do if they get in trouble," Elejalde-Ruiz writes. (Read more)

Veteran journalist sees hope in residential drug recovery program

"Kentucky's struggle to help its citizens who suffer from dependency on drugs and alcohol recently reached an impressive goal when leaders of that struggle who are prominent in different political parties celebrated the official opening of a $5 million treatment center in Western Kentucky," Al Smith wrote in an op-ed piece for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Smith, left, reports on his trip to the dedication of the Recovery Kentucky residential center in Paducah with "First Lady Jane Beshear, wife of the Democratic governor, and Don Ball, the Lexington developer and Republican fund-raiser," who "left politics behind" to mark the opening of the 10th and last in a series of centers planned at Ball's urging by Gov. Steve Beshear's Republican predecessor, Ernie Fletcher. Smith praises Beshear or "retaining Ball as task force chairman and appointing the first lady as his cochair in a commendable commitment to making the program a bipartisan effort."

Recovery Kentucky uses "a recovery model that includes peer support, daily living skills training, job responsibilities and challenges to practice sober living," writes Smith, who overcame his own alcohol addiction almost 50 years ago while editing the Russellville newspaper. "The memory is so vivid I couldn't resist sharing it with some newcomers to sobriety in Paducah," he wrote, quoting himself: "I've been where you've been. It's a program of hope, it works if you work it." (Read more)

Conway joins fight against fruity, high-proof malt beverage

Contending it promotes binge drinking in young adults, Attorney General Jack Conway has joined the fight against a fruit-flavored malt beverage made by Pabst Brewing Co.

Conway is one of 17 attorneys general asking the company to stop marketing Blast by Colt 45 to youth. The drink, which comes in a 23.5-ounce can, has an alcohol concentration of 12 percent, or 24 proof. Each can has the equivalent of five servings of alcohol. The drink comes in flavors like blueberry-pomegranate, strawberry lemonade and raspberry-watermelon.

Conway said Blast poses "a serious health and safety risk" for youth. The attorneys general have asked that the alcohol content be lowered. Pabst has not responded. (Read more)

State gives six residential substance-abuse centers federal money for operating costs

First Lady Jane Beshear Tuesday presented $1.5 million in funding for six Recovery Kentucky substance-abuse centers, further securing the program started in Republican Ernie Fletcher's administration, and attending a ceremonial opening of the center in Paducah, which was completed in December.

The six residential centers each getting $250,000 in federal community development block grants from the state for continued operational costs are in Erlanger, Evarts, Florence, Henderson, Hopkinsville and Richmond. Besides those cities and Paducah, centers are also in Morehead, Owensboro and Campbellsville. Four more are to be built in the next four years.

Recovery Kentucky is an initiative to help Kentuckians recover from substance abuse, which often leads to chronic homelessness. Construction of the facilities, five for men and five for women, was financed in part through the state-controlled Kentucky Housing Corp.

About 4,000 Kentuckians have received treatment in the centers since the first one opened four years ago, but Beshear noted that more than 44,000 Kentuckians over 26 are dependent on drugs and alcohol. “Recovery Kentucky centers are vital for the state to be able to assist individuals suffering from this disease,” she said.

Kentucky teens under 18 among least likely to drink alcohol, but binge drinking among them is nearly the national average

About 6 percent (709,000 of 12 million) of U.S. children aged 12 to 14 drank alcohol in 2009, and nearly half got their drinks from their own home, according to a study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Because the data are new, they have not been broken down by state, SAMHSA spokesman Bradford Stone said. But the 2007-08 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which was released in June 2010, showed Kentucky teens are among the least likely in the country to drink alcohol. Numbers showed about 13.8 percent Kentucky youth ages 12 to 17 had tried alcohol in the month they were surveyed. Census estimates indicate Kentucky has about 235,000 10- to 14-year-olds.

Kentucky ranks 10th lowest in percentage of youths who drink alcohol, the 2007-08 numbers showed. Most of the states with the lowest percentages were in the South, including Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. The lowest percentage, 7.57, was in Utah; Rhode Island, at 20.7 percent, had the highest. Nationwide, the percentage was 15.3 percent.

Nearly 9 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds in Kentucky said they had binged on alcohol in the month they were surveyed, compared to 9.25 percent nationwide.

Research shows underage drinking can lead to future problems. "People who begin drinking alcohol before the age of 15 are six times more likely than those who start at age 21 and older to develop alcohol problems," said SAMHSA Administrator Pamela Hyde.

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health is an annual, countrywide survey involving in-person, at-home interviews with about 70,000 people 12 years of age and older. Each interviewee is randomly selected. Data pertaining to the use of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs and mental health is collected. The survey is funded by SAMHSA. Figures are subject to error margins depending on the size of a state and its sample in the survey.

Morehead substance-abuse center gets $250,000 grant

The Morehead Inspiration Center, a substance-abuse rehabilitation facility, has received $250,000 from the state, funds that will be used to expand recovery options for addicts.

MIC is part of Recovery Kentucky, an initiative that improves access to long-term residential treatment for addition, The Morehead News' Noelle Hunter reports. The initiative, established in 2005 under former Gov. Ernie Fletcher and continued under Gov. Steve Beshear, has 10 rehab centers, in Campbellsville, Erlanger, Florence, Harlan, Henderson, Hopkinsville, Morehead, Owensboro, Paducah and Richmond. Each center uses a peer-based recovery model, offers life skills training and provides a therapeutic environment.

The funds for the Morehead center come from a community development block grant, money that comes from the federal government but is administered by the state. (Read more)

State legislator wants to mandate drug testing for recipients of Medicaid, food stamps and other entitlements

A Republican legislator wants to make recipients of government entitlement programs, including Medicaid, take random drug tests in order to keep getting help.

House Bill 208, which proposes the drug screening, was introduced Jan. 7 by state Rep. Lonnie Napier, R-Lancaster, left. "I'm not a hard-hearted guy," he told the Lexington Herald-Leader's Jack Brammer. "I believe there is a need for public assistance for those who need it, but I understand some are using these funds to buy drugs."

Napier said he wants the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services to do random drug and urine testing for any Kentucky resident over the age of 17 who gets Medicaid, food stamps or welfare benefits. Those failing the test would lose their benefits until they passed drug testing at a later date.

The cost of the proposal is unknown. Napier said there are more than 600,000 Kentucky adults on welfare, and a drug test costs about $30, resulting in a $18 million price tag, plus the likely larger cost of expanding drug treatment programs -- a point made by conservative WHAS Radio talk-show host Mandy Connell in opposing the bill this morning.

Sheila Schuster, who helps advocate for disabled Kentuckians, said the bill "fans the flames of people who misunderstand the plight of those who receive assistance and would put more negative connotation on them." (Read more)