KAPA calls legislative session 'very successful'

By JOHN HULTGREN
Kentucky EMS Connection

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky Ambulance Providers Association called the 2005 Kentucky Legislative Session "very successful," adding that KAPA achieved their two primary goals: an assault bill that protects EMS workers, and a Medicaid reimbursement increase.

The legislative session recessed yesterday. Legislators will return for two days on March 21 when they typically address vetoes that may have been made by the Governor, although they can pass other pending bills on those days. This year is a "short" session that was limited to 30 days and the primary focus was on a state budget which was never passed during last year's session.

According to Sherman Hockenbury, KAPA's Legislative Committee Chairman, "KAPA had two legislation priorities: the Brenda Cowan Act and Medicaid."

Senate Bill 91, also known as the Brenda Cowan Act in honor of a Lexington firefighter/EMT who was slain in the line of duty last year, was written to amend KRS 508.025 to provide that a person is guilty of assault in the third degree when he causes or attempts to cause physical injury to, among others, emergency medical services personnel, organized fire department members, and rescue squad personnel.

Similar bills have been submitted in previous years but have never passed both chambers. The bill has now successfully passed both the Senate and the House and has been delivered to Governor Fletcher for his signature. 

"We thought this bill was dead twice," Hockenbury said. Rep Lindsey, who has never let this bill out of committee before, indicated he would attach an amendment in committee that Hockenbury believes would have killed the bill. However, no amendment was ever added and the bill was passed yesterday.

House Bill 123 was written to create a new section of KRS 205.510 to 205.630 that would have required the Medicaid program to reimburse ambulance providers at the Medicare national fee schedule rate beginning next year.

Although the bill never made it out of the House Health and Welfare Committee, it got the attention of Medicaid. Medicaid officials met with KAPA representatives and "agreed that ambulance providers needed an increase and promised to work with Rep. Jimmy Lee to find the funding and get it into the budget," Hockenbury said.

Combining the budget amount with federal matching funds, there is now an additional $2 million for ambulance reimbursement, a 14% increase.

"We succeeded in doing what we intended, getting our first Medicaid raise in over ten years," Hockenbury said. 

"This has been a real team effort," Hockenbury said.

Other bills related to EMS that were introduced this session include:

• Senate Bill 76, which would permit the Department of Corrections to apply for funding available through the emergency medical services grant program. The bill never made it out of it's first committee.

• Senate Bill 78, which contained some reform legislation for the Kentucky Board of EMS, passed in the Senate but never made it out of the House. Hockenbury said this was not the result of any negative EMS issue and that it is still possible for the bill to pass during the session's final two days.

• Senate Bill 166, which would amend KRS 39E.030 to add the Executive Director of the Commission on Fire Protection Personnel Standards and Education or the director's designee to the membership of the Kentucky Emergency Response Commission, passed and has been delivered to the Governor.

• House Bill 178, which was a companion bill to Senate Bill 78, never made it out of its original committee.

• House Bill 259, which would have exempted full-time paid peace officers, full-time paid firefighters, and full-time paid emergency medical services personnel from jury duty, never made it out of its original committee.

• House Bill 380, which was a companion bill to Senate Bill 91, never made it out of its original committee.

• House Bill 454, which would have amended KRS 95A.260 to include emergency medical technicians and paramedics serving in a city of the first class or in a charter county government in the Firefighters Foundation Program fund, and would have amended KRS 311A.020 to require emergency medical technicians to meet the certification and recertification requirements of the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians, never made it out of its original committee.

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