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KMA To Use Patient Stories Submitted Via Website To Lobby For Better Policy

ALEXANDER KORZH, 123rf stock photos

  A new websiteset up by the Kentucky Medical Association is gathering feedback about ways to improve health care in the commonwealth.

The site allows patients and providers the opportunity to submit stories about problems they’ve encountered with receiving, or administering, health care.

KMA President Dr. Brent Wright said input is needed on a variety of subjects.

“This can be anything that you find frustrating as a physician, physician’s office, or patient. We’re concentrating on the issues of smoking, drug abuse, obesity, diabetes, and flu and pneumonia, because these are areas we found that Kentuckians have some of the greatest challenges with.”

Wright says the idea for the website came after the KMA began hearing complaints from Kentuckians about how tobacco cessation programs weren’t covered by certain insurance plans.

The KMA lobbied lawmakers on the issue, and the 2017 General Assembly passed a bill requiring private insurers and Medicaid plans in the state to provide coverage for tobacco cessation programs approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Wright said the site is easy to use.

“I put an issue up there, and it took all of two minutes to do. And that allows my story, patients’ stories, other physician’s and their office staff’s stories to come forward, and we can have that intelligence of what’s going on out there that we need to advocate for.”

Kevin is the News Director at WKU Public Radio. He has been with the station since 1999, and was previously the Assistant News Director, and also served as local host of Morning Edition. He is a broadcast journalism graduate of WKU, and has won numerous awards for his reporting and feature production. Kevin grew up in Radcliff, Kentucky and currently lives in Glasgow.
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