Take 5 For Your Health

In Missouri, 300,000 Patients’ Dental Care Is In Limbo As State Struggles To Fund Coverage Earlier this year, 69-year-old Aneita McCloskey needed her two front teeth filed down and capped. “They were kind of worn down, and they were also getting little tears and cavities,” she recalls. Without dental insurance, McCloskey is on the hook…

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Take 5 For Your Health

Behind the backlog: The problem-plagued rollout of KEES State officials called a news conference when they inked a $188 million contract in the summer of 2011 for a new high-tech Medicaid enrollment system with Accenture, a Dublin-based multinational professional services giant. They said the new Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System, or KEES, would replace a clunky…

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Take 5 For Your Health

Mercy hospital

Alliance Forming To Push For Kansas Medicaid Expansion A new organization is forming to strengthen the lobbying effort for Medicaid expansion in Kansas. The Alliance for a Healthy Kansas will focus on passing an expansion bill in 2017, not in the waning days of the current session, according to Billie Hall, the chief executive of…

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Take 5 For Your Health

Allen Wagner's family says it took months for his Medicaid application to be approved. His daughter, Amy Flanigan, left, and wife, Charlene Wagner, recalled their frustration as he was moved from hospital to hospital. (Photo : Andy Marso |Heartland Health Monitor)

Kansas Nursing Homes Struggle To Cope With Medicaid Processing Backlogs Judy Kregar is not a member of the Rotary Club in nearby Greensburg, but she decided to go when she heard Gov. Sam Brownback would be at the club’s recent meeting. Kregar, the administrator of a small nursing home in nearby Bucklin, wanted to tell…

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KCK Social Service Organization Cuts Jobs

Wyandot Inc. offices

Hit by recent cuts in state mental health programs, Wyandot Inc., an umbrella organization for four nonprofit agencies in Kansas City, Kansas, has eliminated 26 positions. Six of the positions were vacant and won’t be filled and six other employees accepted transfers to other positions in the organization, leaving a total of 14 who lost…

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