Electronic Monitoring Passes Senate
HB 2232, the bill allowing electronic monitoring in adult care homes, was approved by the Kansas Senate on Thursday afternoon with a unanimous vote. As a reminder, HB 2232 underwent further amendment in the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee. The committee altered the notice requirement on resident rooms, and added a requirement that recordings admitted into evidence be unedited.
What now? Well, the bill will still have to go through conference committee negotiations, and be approved in another round of votes in the House and Senate. After that it can be sent to the Governor for signature (or veto).
Social Service Budget Committee Recommends 4.25% Increase to Nursing Home Funding
The House Social Services Budget Committee met Thursday afternoon to vote on funding recommendations, which will be delivered to the House Appropriations Committee next week. House Appropriations are fancy words for the committee that crafts the state budget every year. The Social Service Budget Committee gathers information and hears testimony from state agencies and advocates for providers and consumers about how much should be given to various Medicaid-funded programs in the coming fiscal year.
We were given two different opportunities this session to speak with the committee about the challenges faced by nursing homes in the last two years, and the urgent need for full funding of nursing home Medicaid rates. The Governor’s budget recommendation was a 3% increase. Committee members agreed not to follow the Governor’s budget, and will recommend to the House Appropriations Committee that nursing homes receive a 4.25% rate increase next fiscal year (which starts July 1, 2018). House Appropriations does not have to follow these recommendations, of course, but it is the next big step to getting the funding we need into the state budget bill.
We will now repeat the process in the senate budget subcommittee on social services.
Dental Therapist Bill Passes Senate
Senate Bill 312 passed the Senate by a 38-0 vote Thursday afternoon. SB 312 creates a new license for mid-level dental practitioners. It will now travel over to the House, and start the process over.
Human Rights Group Gives Presentation on Antipsychotics
Human Rights Watch, a national human rights advocacy group, gave a presentation Tuesday morning to the House Children and Seniors Committee. They summarized their research report on anitpsychotic use in nursing homes, which has received extensive media coverage in Kansas in the last couple of weeks. The researcher told the committee that their priority should be passing HB 2704, the recently introduced bill requiring strict informed consent requirements for antipsychotic drugs. You can read the Human Rights Watch report here.
The Committee also heard testimony from a resident family member featured in the Human Rights Watch report, Kansas Advocates for Better Care, the Kansas Alzheimer’s Association, and a Chaplain with Harry Hynes Memorial Hospice who shared his experience as the spouse of a person with early on-set Alzheimer’s Disease.
Antipsychotics Informed Consent Bill “Blessed” by House Leadership
A Thursday morning hearing on HB 2704, the informed consent bill for antipsychotics, was cancelled after the bill was “blessed” by House Leadership. HB 2704 is a non-exempt bill, meaning that if it is not passed out of the House by next Friday it would be considered dead for the rest of the session. That is no longer the case. House leadership conducted a procedural move to turn HB 2704 into an exempt bill, and now it can be considered and voted on at any point before final adjournment in May.
The House Children and Seniors Chair, Rep. Erin Davis, pulled HB 2704 off of the committee schedule, and announced that a hearing on the bill will be postponed to after turnaround. That likely means a hearing in March.
We encourage you to look at HB 2704, and to share it with your medical directors and other prescribers. If you or your physicians feel inclined to share your views on the bill, or on the antipsychotics issue in general, below you will find links to the legislators supporting HB 2704.
- Rep. Linda Gallagher
- Rep. Dave Baker
- Rep. Pam Curtis
- Rep. Debbie Deere
- Rep. Mary Martha Good
- Rep. Anita Judd-Jenkins
- Rep. Patty Markley
- Rep. Leonard Mastroni
- Rep. Jarrod Ousley
- Rep. John Resman
Bill Tracker
SB 195 and HB 2508 Requires KDHE to suspend (rather than terminate) medicaid eligibility for persons in a state hospital, nursing facility for mental health, or a correctional facility
SB 300 and HB 2507 Prohibits major changes to the Medicaid program without the consent of the legislature, instructs KDHE to withdraw its KanCare 2.0 application to CMS, and instead apply for a one year extension of current KanCare
SB 312 Licensure of dental therapists
HB 2427 Amends background checks in adult care homes to require fingerprinting, increases fees, and adds various new misdemeanor and felonies to the exclusion list
HB 2232 Electronic monitoring in adult care homes
HB 2458 Expands the type of crimes that qualify as mistreatment of a dependent adult or elder person
HB 2496 Nurse licensure compact establishing a multi-state license category
HB 2512 Establishes the Kansas telemedicine act
HB 2590 Changes to the long term care ombudsman program
HB 2704 Informed consent requirements for antipsychotic drugs
SCR 1609 Constitutional amendment limiting the authority to close schools to locally elected boards of education
