BY ANDY MARSO

Many Kansas health care providers will see a lower cost next year for participating in a state fund that backs them up if a malpractice claim exceeds their primary insurance.

All Kansas health care providers are required to participate in the Health Care Stabilization Fund, which is paid for through a surcharge on their primary liability insurance.

Russ Sutter, an actuary with the firm Willis Towers Watson, told an oversight committee Wednesday that the fund’s board of governors had approved a reduction after claims and related legal fees came in below expectations in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

“We advised the board to consider a modest decrease in its rates,” Sutter said.

The fund’s board of governors ultimately decided on a 2.7 percent overall reduction that will begin Jan. 1, 2017, and be centered mostly on physicians, surgeons, chiropractors, registered nurse anesthetists and podiatrists who have been in the fund five years or more.

Members of those groups, which include thousands of the fund’s 14,085 total members, will see 7 percent surcharge reductions.

The amount of the 7 percent reductions in raw dollars will vary based on each provider’s premium for primary liability coverage.

Jerry Slaughter, executive director of the Kansas Medical Society, which represents doctors, said most of the state’s physicians probably would save a few hundred dollars next year.

“It’s not a huge amount, but it’s something,” Slaughter said.

Spread over an entire patient load, any savings to each health care consumer would be negligible, he said.

The only providers with more than five years in the fund who will have to pay a higher surcharge are 347 who cannot find primary liability coverage in the private market and therefore purchase it through the Kansas Health Care Provider Insurance Availability Plan.

The presentation Sutter gave Wednesday at the Statehouse to the Health Care Stabilization Fund Oversight Committee estimated that the fund could cut surcharges and still maintain its current $48 million reserves despite a slight reduction in the projected rate of investment return next year.

That’s because the trend in recent years has been for the fund to pay out fewer claims and pay less, on average, for each claim than expected.

However, Sutter said there are variables to watch closely during the year, including the number and severity of claims incurred by physicians assistants, nurse midwives, assisted living facilities and nursing homes, which are more difficult to predict because those providers only joined the fund in 2015.

Until a year ago, four nursing facilities had resisted participating in the fund. But Chip Wheelen, the fund’s executive director, said they’re all in now. The fund itself is in its 40th year.

Wheelen called it a “a truly successful public-private partnership” that has served its purpose of making Kansas a good place to provide health care and sell insurance by diffusing the costs of malpractice claims.

“It has achieved its legislative intent for the long haul,” Wheelen said.

But he added that’s only possible because the Legislature has left the money in the fund to its intended purpose.

For the third year in a row, Wheelen urged legislators not to repurpose the funds to patch budget holes — as they have done in the past with other state fee funds.

This year Slaughter joined him.

“This is money that’s been paid by the health care community, set aside in trust to make sure that their patients are covered in the event that there’s a claim in the future,” Slaughter said. “We really feel strongly that the Legislature — and they’ve done this, they’ve honored that commitment, they’ve not touched those funds — we would encourage them to do the same thing (this year) even though things are a bit rough right now from a fiscal standpoint.”

The state general fund faces a $350 million deficit for the fiscal year that ends in June 2017 and a $600 million deficit for the following fiscal year.

The oversight committee, which is made up of a mix of legislators and health care experts, included language in its annual report to the Legislature saying that the Health Care Stabilization Fund should remain off-limits for balancing the budget.

“We need to leave this fund alone,” said Sen. Vicki Schmidt, a Republican from Topeka who sits on the committee. “It needs to remain with the purpose that it was intended for.”

Andy Marso is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team. You can reach him on Twitter @andymarso

HODGEMAN COUNTY – A rural Hodgeman County woman is recovering from a serious accident this week. The quick work of the Hodgeman County Sheriff’s Office and other first responders saved her life.

The woman in her 60s, according to Sheriff Jared Walker, fell and impaled her arm on the metal rod of boot scraper.

Her husband called 911 and a Hodgeman County dispatcher instructed him to temporarily use his belt on the wound. It did slow the bleeding until help could drive the fourteen miles to their rural southwest Hodgeman County home.

When Undersheriff Jeff Channell arrived, he quickly applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

“When I came, we didn’t have much medical equipment in our vehicles,” said Walker. “We added first aid kits and about three weeks ago included tourniquets,” he said.

First responders transported the woman to a hospital for treatment.

“They were going to keep her hospitalized for a couple of days,” said Walker. “Without the quick work by everyone involved, the woman might not have survived.”

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita police are investigating a report that a student had a handgun at a school bus stop earlier this week.

Police spokesman Officer Charley Davidson said Friday that police received a call Wednesday that a girl reported seeing a 12-year-old boy and 14-year-old boy playing with a handgun at a school bus stop, and that the 14-year-old also fired a shot into the ground. Davidson says it appears the shot was fired accidentally.

The Wichita Eagle reports that police are investigating whether the gun was taken onto the bus or into Truesdell Middle School.

Susan Arensman, spokeswoman for the Wichita school district, also says the student showed the gun to other students on the bus ride home. Principal Terrell Davis says the students involved will face disciplinary action.

TERRYTOWN, La. -The Latest on the fatal shooting of former NFL player Joe McKnight (all times local):

10:45 a.m.

Authorities say the man who shot former NFL player Joe McKnight was released from custody overnight.

Col. John Fortunato is a spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. He tells news media outlets Ronald Gasser hasn’t been charged yet and the shooting is still under investigation.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand on Thursday identified Gasser as the man who shot McKnight.

The shooting happened about 3 p.m. Thursday in Terrytown, a suburb of New Orleans just across the Mississippi River.

McKnight is the second former NFL player this year to die in the New Orleans area as a result of a possible road-rage incident. Former New Orleans Saints player Will Smith was killed in April in a shooting that was sparked by a traffic altercation.

 

—Former Kansas City Chief Joe McKnight has been shot to death following an argument at an intersection with another motorist outside New Orleans.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand says it happened about 2:43 p.m. Thursday in Terrytown, a suburb of New Orleans.

Normand says 28-year-old McKnight was standing outside his car when he was shot by 54-year-old Ronald Gasser.

Normand says Gasser stayed at the scene and relinquished his weapon to responding officers. He says Gasser is in custody and being questioned.

Sheriff’s spokesman Col. John Fortunato says they’re anticipating charging Gasser but it’s unclear with what.

McKnight, who played for the New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs, is the second NFL player this year to die as a result of a possible road-rage incident. Saints player Will Smith was killed in April.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say one person has been killed in an early morning house fire north of Topeka.

Kansas State Fire Marshall’s Office spokesman Kevin Doel says eight people were in the home when fire started around 6:20 a.m. Friday.

Several were transported for treatment, including the person who died. The name and age of the victim wasn’t immediately released.

Doel says he has no information about the conditions of the other people injured in the blaze.

Authorities are investigating.

MANHATTAN — The former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman hired as Kansas State University’s president will receive a $500,000 annual salary.

His predecessor Kirk Schulz was paid just over $456,000 his final year at Kansas State.

Washington State University gave Schulz a five-year contract with a base salary of $625,000 per year to leave Manhattan. Schulz also will receive an additional retention incentive of $25,000 per year, according to a social media report.

The Kansas Board of Regents released the letter of appointment Thursday for Gen. Richard Myers. He was promoted last month from interim president, a job he’s held since April.

The Kansas State University Foundation will finance $156,250 of Myers’ yearly salary, a common practice for paying university presidents.

As part of his annual compensation package, the foundation will provide Myers with two university vehicles and a membership to the Manhattan Country Club.

The foundation also will finance Myers’ deferred compensation package. That includes getting $31,250 after his first year of service, progressing to $187,500 if he remains as president for eight years or more.

The AP contributed to this report.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A teenager accused of sexually assaulting two classmates at a suburban Kansas City high school has pleaded guilty to amended charges in a case that touched off a metro-wide protest.

The Kansas City Star reports that the 15-year-old Leawood boy admitted Thursday in juvenile court to two felony aggravated battery counts.

The teen initially was charged in September with three counts of aggravated indecent liberties with two underage students at Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village. He also had been charged with exposing himself in April 2015 to a girl at another school.

Under the plea agreement, he faces 10 days in juvenile detention and two years of probation when he’s sentenced in April.

 

Thank you @smnwstuco #WearBlackToStopAttacks pic.twitter.com/fGSPp1wTNu

— SME STUCO (@STUCOSME) September 21, 2016

On September 21, hundreds of students wore black as part of the protest.