Kansas Advocacy Updates: March 26, 2025

We’re in the final days of session leading up to first adjournment. Conference committees have started meeting this week on various bills including HB2249, the rural emergency hospital bill. Otherwise, budget negotiations between the chambers continued into Tuesday this week. Aging services funding including the fully funded rebase, Medicaid add-on at $20/Medicaid resident/day, and a PACE rebase were agreed to in the base budget bill HB2007, meaning we did not have to go to conference to ensure our funding stayed in for this fiscal year – a first and significant win. Aging Services Day took place on Monday and a special thanks to those who attended and went with the flow as we navigated ever changing legislative calendars. We can’t wait to bring it back next year at the beginning of session in January. 

Have any questions? Email Kylee Childs. 

KUMC currently has funding to support 30 sites to attain Age-Friendly Health Systems Recognition between now and December 31, 2025. They encourage additional sites who may not require funding to apply and be recognized as a Kansas 4M Champion site. 

Kansas 4M Geriatrics Workforce Education Program is offering 

$1,000 for up to 30 sites to participate in an 

Age-Friendly Action Community and achieve Level 1 and Level 2 

Age-Friendly Health Systems Recognition. 

The program uses an evidence-based framework known as the 4Ms: 

What Matters, Medication, Mentation (Mind), and Mobility. 

Participating sites may include nursing homes, primary care sites and delivery systems, hospitals, ambulatory care, convenient care clinics, geriatric surgery, and geriatric emergency departments serving older adults across Kansas. 

Eligible funded sites will be accepted on a first-come, first-registered basis. 

CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR TO APPLY 

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) Preparedness Program in the Bureau of Community Health Systems worked together with the Kansas Health Institute and partners across the state to create the Kansas Crisis Standards of Care Guidance (KSCSCG) for Long Term Care Facilities and it is now available on the KDHE website. 

KSCSCG is a resource to assist hospitals and now also long-term care facilities in planning for events that may require contingences to help cope with increased impact from a surge event. The KSCSCG for hospitals was created in 2022 and updated in 2023 with the help of both professionals and community members in order to create guidance that was comprehensive, equitable, and provides an all-hazards approach. It is based on the work of the Community Advisory Board (CAB), the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP), and input from community stakeholders who participated in surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Through that process, it became apparent that a similar but different document would be helpful for long-term care facilities. Using the document for hospitals as the basis and then that same process of engaging the CAB, TAP, state agency partners, and community stakeholders, the KSCSCG for Long Term Care Facilities was created. 

The KSCSCG for Hospitals and Long-Term Care are both now posted on the Emergency Preparedness Resources page. 

Here are the individual/direct links to each document: 

Hospitals 

Long-Term Care