Month: January 2015

by Andy Marso
The three insurance companies administering Kansas Medicaid now have direct access to the state’s prescription drug tracking system.

Officials from the companies told legislators Monday that the move will enhance patient care by allowing them to more quickly identify prescription drug abuse.

“We take this very, very, very seriously,” said Michael McKinney, CEO of Sunflower State Health Plan. “If you check with your hospitals, you’ll find that the most common overdose in emergency rooms is prescription drugs. It’s not street drugs.”

The Kansas Board of Pharmacy manages the Kansas Tracking and Reporting of Controlled Substances, or K-TRACS, program. K-TRACS allows doctors and pharmacists to access an online database that shows a patient’s prescription history.

Previously, Sunflower State and the other two managed care organizations (MCOs) that administer KanCare had to go through the pharmacy board to get information on how many prescriptions their consumers were getting and from how many doctors.

Debra Billingsley, the board’s executive director, said giving the KanCare companies direct access will simplify the process for all parties involved.

“It will make things easier for us because it will take a lot less of our staff time, and it will be easier for the MCOs,” she said.

McKinney said that in addition to keeping consumers safer, direct access to the information also will help MCOs curb costs by keeping consumers out of the ER.

“The drugs themselves are often cheap,” McKinney said. “But what they go through when they take too much of them is not cheap, and it’s certainly not safe.”

Tim Spilker, CEO of United Healthcare Community Plan of Kansas, which is another KanCare MCO, said his company takes the responsibility for privacy of the K-TRACS data very seriously. He also said the change will make it easier for the company to fulfill its mission of taking care of every aspect of consumers’ health, including identifying and properly treating physical ailments and behavioral problems like addiction.

“We appreciate the fact we have access,” Spilker said. “This is really another data point we can use.”

Billingsley said deaths from prescription drug overdose in Kansas had increased from 3.4 per 100,000 people in 1999 to 9.6 per 100,000 today.

She said part of the problem is that Kansas borders Missouri, which is the only state that does not have a prescription drug monitoring program.

But part of the problem is that within the state, some health providers who used K-TRACS to identify patients who were seeking drugs from multiple physicians simply stopped treating those patients rather than getting them help.

Billingsley said her agency is collaborating more with other state agencies to try to follow up with those patients.

“Some of these patients can be identified and steered toward drug treatment,” she said. “So they don’t just fire them as a patient and then they become some other doctor’s problem, or they just go to Missouri.”

The nonprofit KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute and a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor reporting collaboration. All stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online.

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To coincide with Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week, the AARP Fraud Watch Network is launching an education effort to help people protect themselves from tax scams, releasing a new video, a tip sheet and encouraging people to take advantage of AARP’s free tax preparation services.

Many taxpayers are putting themselves at greater risk of tax identity theft according to a recent national study released by the AARP Fraud Watch Network in conjunction with the education campaign to help prevent scammers from stealing Kansans’ hard-earned money.

“Throwing a pay stub in the trash may seem easier than finding a shredder, but the risk of having your tax refund stolen is just too great,” said AARP Kansas Director Maren Turner. “The Fraud Watch Network is urging all Kansans to file early so you can beat con artists to the punch.”

According to the Federal Trade Commission, Kansas ranks 30th in ID theft complaints. In the tax identity theft scheme, scammers electronically file a tax return under someone else’s name to collect their tax refund. All they need is a birthdate and Social Security number, and many taxpayers make their personal information easy pickings by:

– Failing to lock their mailbox. Almost six in ten (59 percent) Americans do not regularly lock their mailbox, which leaves them open to a criminal stealing bills, tax forms and other documents that contain personal information.
– Leaving valuables exposed: Over half (54 percent) of Americans 18-49 have left at least one valuable personal item in their car in the last week (e.g., a purse/wallet, paystub, laptop) that could be used to steal their identity.
– Failing to destroy personal information: More than one in five (21 percent) Americans say they never shred any of the personal documents that could be used to steal their identity.

Tips on how to protect yourself and your family from tax identity theft include:

– Do mail tax returns as early in the tax season as possible before the cons beat you to it.
– Don’t give out personal information unless you know who’s asking for it and why they need it.
– Shred personal and financial documents.
– Know your tax preparer.

Kansans are also encouraged to visit aarp.org/taxaide (1-888-227-7669) for information about AARP Foundation Tax Aide, the nation’s largest free, volunteer-run tax preparation program. Each tax season, Tax Aide helps millions of low- to moderate-income taxpayers – especially those 60 and older – get the credits and deductions they deserve.

For these and other fraud prevention tips, visit aarp.org/fraudwatchnetwork. For additional help, contact the IRS Identity Protection Specialized Unit at 800-908-4490 and visit irs.gov/identitytheft.