(AP) — Realtors and bankers in Kansas want to do away with county fees to register property bought on a mortgage.
The groups say the mortgage registration fee discriminates against people who borrow money to buy homes or business property.
County officials want to keep the fee. They say without the fee it’s estimated that counties across the state will lose about $47 million a year in revenue.
The Kansas Bankers Association also says the registration fee is actually a tax because nearly all the amount charged goes to the county’s general fund and doesn’t reflect the cost of recording the document.
Counties say increased property taxes to make up for lost revenue would be a bigger burden on homeowners and businesses than the fee.
Director of Nursing Tori Mance with a resident at Country Care in Easton. Photo by Phil Cauthon
Kevin Unrein, chief executive and co-owner of a company that operates three Kansas nursing homes, said there is something he would like state policymakers to know about KanCare.
“It’s a mess,” he said last week, leaving a meeting at a Topeka hotel conference room that brought together dozens of nursing home managers and representatives of the state’s three KanCare managed care companies. “I think it’s like Obamacare. It wasn’t ready and they pushed it and made it work.
“Most of our problems with it tend to be billing issues, not getting them resolved. It’s all these little things that need to get fixed and they never get fixed,” he said. “Things like paying the wrong rates. That’s very common. We used to bill (the state-run Medicaid program) on Thursday or Friday every week and payment hit the bank the following Friday. Now, about 20 percent gets paid by the following week.”
Unrein said his company is owed an estimated $500,000 overdue from the KanCare insurance companies for services provided at Lakepoint Corporate’s three facilities, which are in El Dorado, Augusta and Wichita. Together, they house about 270 residents. More than half those frail, elderly people are enrolled in KanCare plans paid for by state Medicaid dollars.
“What Medicaid used to take one hour a week to do (in nursing home staff time), it now takes 40 hours,” Unrein said. “It’s basically doubled our billing costs. In the nursing home area, it ought to be pretty basic. Most of the people are going to be with us until they die. There’s not a lot of negotiating on hours and rates. It’s routine billing”
Unrein’s complaints about stalled or contested payments and added administrative burden are nothing state and KanCare company officials haven’t heard before from the state’s Medicaid providers.
Hospitals, doctors and pharmacists have all raised the same or similar concerns in recent weeks and months. Members of the Legislature’s KanCare oversight committee got earfuls at their first meeting in October and likely will hear more at their meeting scheduled today.
For months, the glitches have been chalked up by many as the inevitable consequences of sweeping system changes launched by the administration of Gov. Sam Brownback when it undertook to remake the state’s Medicaid program by turning over day-to-day operations to the for-profit companies: Amerigroup, UnitedHealthCare and Sunflower State Health Plan, a subsidiary of Centene.
Administration officials said KanCare would save state and federal governments more than $1 billion over five years while improving the health of Medicaid enrollees and without cutting rates paid to service providers.
With more than four years left to go, that remains to be seen.
But top administration officials continue to paint the program in glowing terms, despite the concerns raised by frustrated provider groups.
Last week, Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer described KanCare as: “…leveraging private sector experience and innovation while maintaining policy and hands-on oversight of the Kansas Medicaid program to ensure improved patient outcomes and a sustained growth rate.”
‘Raising hell’
Meanwhile, the clamor over the problems seems undiminished or even growing, at least among some providers.
“We didn’t really start raising hell until June, July and August,” Unrein said of complaints his company began making then to the KanCare companies. “We thought this would all be figured out by now.”
Unrein said now he is ready to start complaining to state lawmakers or anyone else who will listen about the ongoing problems he and others in the state’s long-term care industry have been experiencing with KanCare, which was launched Jan. 1.
“We’re going to be talking to everyone we can,” he said.
Aquila Jordan of the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services told the nursing home managers at last week’s meeting that agency teams fielding questions and concerns about the program “don’t have the physical capacity to take phone calls that they need. The volume they receive is overwhelming.”
Spokespersons for the state’s long-term care industry said the larger nursing chains have the resources — attorneys, full-time billing staff and enough operating cash — that leave them better equipped to weather the changes, but smaller, independently owned nursing homes, which serve many of the state’s rural towns, have been particularly hard hit.
“It’s just a big old rock, a boulder running down the hill at them,” said Cindy Luxem, president of the Kansas Health Care Association, which represents most of the state’s for-profit independent nursing homes and assisted living facilities. “I’ve now got these out-of-state real estate companies calling, asking us to let them know when people are ready to sell. This administration is turning this into a big-company business.”
‘The insurance company game’
Easton, which is near Leavenworth, has a population of 253 and 45 of the town’s residents live at Country Care, the local nursing home. Forty of the 45 residents are in KanCare plans, according to Tammy O’Donnell, who co-owns the nursing home with her elderly mother, Marthy Hegarty. It has been the family’s business since the 1970s.
“It’s like the insurance company game,” O’Donnell said of dealing with the KanCare companies. “You’ve seen movies made about stuff like this. They deny claims or take long enough to pay that eventually you just give up and go away.”
O’Donnell said the nursing home recently filed a claim for 31 days of services it provided a resident, expecting it would be paid the standard, flat day rate of $140 x 31 or $4,340. But apparently a field in the online billing system was incorrectly filled so the KanCare company read it as a bill for $31, which it paid. When the error was pointed out, the KanCare company officials acknowledged it but said their contract with the nursing home only obliged them to pay what was billed.
“We argued and argued with them,” O’Donnell said. “Finally, it escalated to a point where I said we were turning them into the state for Medicaid fraud. The state of Kansas was paying them their amount, but they wouldn’t pay us. Finally, that got their attention. Basically it took weeks and weeks of talking to people. They still haven’t paid it, I don’t believe, but now at least they talk to us about paying. That’s just been one example. There have been many, many others like that.”
A representative of one of the state’s larger long-term care companies said the KanCare changes had not been as difficult for them but had not gone unnoticed, either.
“Payment has slowed down. And we’ve seen the growing pains you would see with a new system moving forward,” said Lee Eaton, vice president of operations for Midwest Health, which has 48 facilities in four states, about half of which are in Kansas. “We haven’t had cash flow problems, but I can see how a mom-and-pop would be really stressed to make payroll.”
Even before KanCare, according to those in the long-term care industry, Medicaid failed to cover the actual costs of service, which have to be made up in a variety of ways, including higher charges to private-pay customers.
“Appropriate reimbursement is always an issue when you’re talking about Medicaid, whether you’re talking about the state or the MCOs (managed care organizations),” Eaton said. “It very rarely covers the cost to care for the person and by its nature is underfunded.”
‘Balancing act’
Kansas historically has had a relatively high percentage of people in nursing homes that pay for the services themselves without turning to Medicaid. But as baby boomers age and current economic imbalances harden over time, the prospect of greater reliance on Medicaid seems likely, those in the industry said, which makes the future look bleaker still for many small nursing home operators.
“It’s definitely a balancing act,” said Debra Zehr, chief executive of LeadingAge Kansas, a trade association that represents many of the state’s non-profit, long-term-care facilities. “The gap between costs and (Medicaid) reimbursements for our members approaches $20 a day on average,” per resident.”
There is a law on the books in Kansas that requires the state to periodically “rebase” or adjust its Medicaid reimbursements to nursing homes to more closely align with actual costs, but in each of the past three years, the Legislature has added a proviso suspending the requirement.
“They’re hoping to suspend that again (in the 2014 session),” Zehr said. “But costs continue to go up.”
Zehr said KanCare problems were just one factor among many that are pressuring those in the industry.
“It’s not perfect,” she said of the program, “but I think the general trend is toward getting better. We had one large system that said in the past (when the state ran it) they would be paid virtually 95 percent within 90 days for their nursing homes. Now, its about 82 percent full payment” within 90 days.
“But there are a lot of factors going on in the environment that make the future of nursing homes not a sure bet,” Zehr said. “Certainly, to the extent payments are delayed, that doesn’t help. But if we were going to attribute the causes of a (possible) closure, it’s not outright KanCare, but that the state hasn’t been fulfilling it full obligation for some years now on reimbursement.
“We haven’t been getting an inflation factor, to put it simply,” she said. “But that’s not in the hands of the managed care companies. That’s in the hands of KDADS.”
Officials at the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services said they are not proposing any more spending for nursing homes in fiscal 2014-15 than was already approved by the 2013 Legislature, which means that funding essentially will remain flat unless legislators choose to augment, which appears unlikely.
‘Nail in the coffin’
Margins are tight and Medicaid doesn’t pay enough to begin with, those in the industry say, so “if you’re shorted 3 percent that’s a big number” said Unrein, the LakePoint CEO. “The only thing you can do is cut costs, so that means cutting care,” he said, because 60 percent of costs are labor related and staffing must be reduced to make up the difference.
And then there are the ongoing federal changes, he said.
His company currently provides insurance coverage to about 150 of its 400 employees. But with the federal health reform law, many more — if not all — the employees are likely to sign up for the company’s health plan, pushing HighPoint’s costs to the breaking point. At least one of the company’s facilities — the one with the most Medicaid residents — might need to be sold, he said.
“Obamacare will be the nail in the coffin,” Unrein predicted. “All this stuff hitting at once. There’s no way.” –By Mike Sheilds KHI News Service
(AP) — A 44-year-old Lenexa police officer has been running a marathon each weekend for nearly a year to raise money for two charities.
Bob Schluben finished his 52nd marathon in 47 weeks on Sunday when he completed the Gobbler Grind marathon in Overland Park . He’s raised almost $30,000 for the Sunflower House in Shawnee and the Surviving Spouse and Family Endowment Fund, also known as SAFE. Sunflower House is a child abuse prevention center, and SAFE raises money to support families of police officers, firefighters and paramedics who die on duty.
Schluben initially promised to run a marathon each weekend, but he did more than one a few weekends, so even though he has done 52, he plans to do five more this year.
The image of Mom with her nose buried in the front page, Dad reading the sports page and the kids chuckling their way through the comics, harkens back to long ago days when news exposure in the home was a family affair. Sections of the daily paper were shared just like the space around the glow of the round radio dial and later the television set.
Young Americans were huge consumers of news just a few decades ago. Millions of baby boomers consumed their news in mass quantities.
During this time period, two out of three young adults watched the nightly news on CBS, NBC or ABC. These three media giants ruled the airwaves pitching cars, cigarettes, soft drinks and other consumer goods between news segments. Today cable and satellite television news commercials still pander to the same boomers only now they’re marketing prescription drugs.
Older Americans continue to schedule their late afternoons around a daily “appointment” with television news. Fewer and fewer young people behave that way and most don’t set aside a specific time of the day to “get their news.”
About one in six young adults and a like proportion of teens watch the news nightly. By contrast, more than two of every five older adults watch the national news religiously and a slightly larger number follow local TV news.
Some studies say today’s young Americans are less interested in news than their counterparts of a generation or two ago. Other contemporary analysis claims the digital revolution is bringing young people back to the news.
One thing is for certain, the notion that young people do not care about the news is dead wrong. What’s happening is they rely on a different distribution system.
Young people today are still interested in news. They want to keep abreast of the environment, health, food, nutrition, sports and many of the same issues that have always driven people to seek information. They still crave a daily diet of hate, death and war.
However, they’d much rather read about it on their smart phone, iPad and computer – anything but the daily newspaper. Media use today has become a solitary affair.
Today, two out of three young adults largely ignore this wood-based relic. Two out of every five pay almost no attention to national and local television news as well.
I’m not making this up. These figures come from a recent study on press, politics and public policy from one of the most revered institutions of higher learning located on the East Coast.
When it comes to newspapers today, only one in five older adults remains an avid newspaper reader. An avid reader is defined as one who reads every day and pays close attention to news stories while doing so. Only one in 12 young adults and a scant one in 20 teens rely on newspapers as a source of information in their daily lives.
Age differences shrink for Internet-based news, but do not disappear. Older adults are less likely than young adults and teens to access the Web; however, they make greater use of it as a news source.
Still, none of these three age groups use Internet-based news heavily. About one in seven older adults, one in eight young adults and one in 12 teenagers are heavy users of the Internet for news.
Few Americans believe they must be plugged into each and every news source. Most are comfortable with the medium of their own choice. Older adults choose what’s comfortable to them while younger news gatherers like to explore the latest avenues and sources of technology.
In 2013 younger Americans have opted for new ways of getting their news. They tap into entertainment programs, comedy, new media, acquaintances or an irregular mix of traditional media.
It is simply not true that the Internet and social media are responsible for the decline in news interests among young Americans. Many factors have contributed including a weakening of the home as a place where news habits are acquired.
John Schlageck is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas. Born and raised on a diversified farm in northwestern Kansas, his writing reflects a lifetime of experience, knowledge and passion.
Due to the observance of the city Thanksgiving Day holiday Thursday, November 28, and Friday, November 29, refuse/recycling route collection schedules will be altered starting Tuesday.
Tuesday and Wednesday’s collection schedule will be picked up with Tuesday’s collection schedule Tuesday, November 26.
Thursday and Friday’s collection schedule will be picked up Wednesday, November 27.
There will be no refuse/recycling collected Thursday or Friday, November 28 and 29.
Please make sure your bags are out by 7a.m. collection day and keep in mind trucks will be running late at the end of the day.
It is anticipated that heavy volumes of refuse/recyclable will be encountered around the holidays.
City of Hays customers with questions should contact the Solid Waste Division of the Public Works Department at 628-7357.
Site Plan Layout and Transportation PlanBuckeye Wind Energy Project, Ellis County, Kansas
COUNTY COMMISSION
Monday, November 25, 2013 11:00 AM Ellis County Commission Meeting Room, Ellis County Courthouse
Special Meeting Order of Business
I. Opening
A. Call to Order
B. Clerk Calls the Roll
C. Approval of Agenda
II. Buckeye Wind, LLC
A. Road Maintenance Agreement
Consideration of Agreement Enclosure
B. Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) Agreement
Consideration of Agreement Enclosure
C. Decommissioning Agreement
Consideration of Agreement Enclosure
III. Adjournment
(AP) — The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating why a pilot mistakenly landed a cargo-hauling jumbo jet at a small Kansas airport instead of the Air Force base a few miles away.
The agency opened the investigation Friday. NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said in an email that the investigation would take about six to 12 months to complete.
The Boeing 747 was supposed to touch down Wednesday night at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita. Instead, it landed at the smaller Col. James Jabara Airport.
Boeing owns the plane, but it’s operated by Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings. Atlas spokeswoman Bonnie Rodney said in an e-mail that the company is providing its full assistance to regulatory authorities.
The Federal Aviation Administration also is investigating the landing.
(AP) — The search for contestants for a “Jeopardy” teenage tournament has made a stop in Kansas City.
A couple dozen teens showed up Saturday at the Sheraton Kansas City Hotel at Crown Center. They’re among 300 youths the TV quiz show is auditioning to find 15 who will make the tournament. Just to reach an audition meant scoring well on an online quiz.
After getting their picture snapped, the teens had less than seven minutes to finish a 50-question “Jeopardy”-style written quiz. That was followed by brief buzzer-beating competitions among three teens at a time, just like on television.
The teens came from Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. Some already knew how they’d spend the $75,000 tournament prize.
Approximate location of Sunday rollover crash in Geary County. Click to enlarge
A Junction City man was injured in a rollover crash on Sunday.
According to the Kansas Highway Patrol twenty-year-old Gary Todd Swartz was driving a 1999 Pontiac Firebird north on U77, 1.5 miles South of Lyons Creek Rd in Geary County
Swartz drove the car off the right side of the road. The car struck a field entrance, went airborne, rolled several times and came to rest on its roof. He was transported to the hospital in Manhattan. He was wearing a seat belt.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Philip Rivers threw for 392 yards and three touchdowns, the final one a 26-yarder to Seyi Ajirotutu with 24 seconds remaining, to give San Diego a 41-38 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday and end the Chargers’ three-game losing streak.
The Chiefs had taken the lead when Alex Smith hit Dwayne Bowe in tight coverage for a go-ahead score with 1:22 left. But the Chargers (5-6) still had two timeouts, and they used both of them to quickly move downfield. Ajirotutu’s TD was just his third catch of the season.
It also represented the eighth and final lead change in the game.
Smith threw for 292 yards and three touchdowns for the Chiefs, who dropped their second straight after a 9-0 start. They also lost top pass rusher Tamba Hali and Justin Houston to injuries and now have to turn their attention to the Denver Broncos next week.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) Kansas State arrived in San Juan for the Puerto Rico Tip-Off with lofty goals.
The Wildcats didn’t have a perfect week by any means, but for the most part coach Bruce Weber likes the team he’s taking back home.
Thomas Gipson had 18 points and 10 rebounds as Kansas State cruised to a 52-38 win over Long Beach State in the seventh-place game at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off on Sunday.
Weber acknowledged that playing three games in four days wore on both teams and that the Wildcats probably benefited from playing Sunday against Long Beach State team that was more tired than them coming from the West Coast.
“Obviously we did a good job defensively,” Weber said. “It’s one of those games … it’s about desire and excuses. We challenged our guys and made some progress.
“Overall I thought we were in a lot of right places and disrupted them.”
Marcus Foster added 10 points, his third double-figures performance of the tournament and fifth straight overall.
For the game the 49ers were held to just 19 percent shooting from the field and 21 percent from beyond the arc.
Long Beach State coach Dan Monson said he didn’t think his team played particularly bad after playing well against VCU in the previous round. He said their inability to score put them in a hole that was unrecoverable, though.
But as much as Long Beach State had its issues shooting, Kansas State didn’t play error-free basketball either, committing 23 turnovers.
“I think young guys just have to understand when to go and when not to,” Weber said. “This next month we have (six) homes game and then Gonzaga and (Kansas on Jan. 11) … We gotta make some strides.”
He said having six freshmen on the roster, including Foster, will demand they learn lessons quickly.
“Part of it is young guys, part of it is figuring our roles,” Weber said. “I hope our young guys learn what it’s about.”
The game was close early before Wildcats (3-3) pulled away in the second half as the 49ers’ shooting percentage fell below 15 percent. They went more than 20 minutes without a field goal, missing 28 consecutive shots at one point.
Long Beach State (1-6) got no closer than 15 points in the second half. Mike Caffey led the 49ers with 13 points.
It was Kansas State’s second win this season over Long Beach State. The Wildcats posted a 13-point win on Nov. 17.
The 38 points is a season-low for the 49ers, which lost their sixth straight.
Kansas State took a 25-13 lead in the opening 20 minutes. The Wildcats had a 10-2 advantage in the paint, with most coming from Gipson, who finished the half with 11 points.
Long Beach State tied it at 10, but went cold from the field as K-State closed with a 15-3 spurt.
The 13 points scored by the 49ers was a tournament-record low for a half. The 49ers struggled from all over, shooting just 12 percent (4 for 32) from the field and 16 percent (2 for 12) from the 3-point line.
Despite their struggles at times this week, Weber said he doesn’t think they are that far away from being able to compete in conference play.
“They gotta understand we gotta get better and it’s only going to come through practice and time in the gym,” Weber said. “Little things gotta be important.”
U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) release the following statement today in reaction to President Barack Obama’s announcement that a six-month international deal has been reached in regard to Iran’s nuclear program:
“Iran’s track record of deception and refusal to abide by past international demands make me gravely concerned about this deal. Now is not the time to ease up on the pressure and turn the other way, allowing Iran to make further progress in achieving its goal.
“Congress should pass additional sanctions so that if Iran breaks the agreement, President Obama can not only reverse the sanctions relief granted by this deal but immediately impose more sanctions. We must do everything we can to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.”
(AP) — Realtors and bankers in Kansas want to do away with county fees to register property bought on a mortgage.
