Work by Rick Hellman | Kansas Health Institute

Blue Cross Kansas City cuts some rates for mental health providers

Some non-physician counselors say reduced rates could hurt access to services

Non-physician mental-health counselors in Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City’s preferred-provider network are smarting from a Nov. 1 pay cut that some say averages nearly 30 percent.

Programs aim for healthier communities by helping inmates re-enter society

New programs in Kansas and Missouri aim to reduce the number of people returning to prisons, thereby improving community health and helping break interlaced cycles of poverty, crime and poor health.

Pipeline programs help bring minorities into health care

Mentoring, like that done by Dr. Vernon Mills of Leavenworth, is known to be among one of the best ways to recruit minorities and others into the medical professions. Pipeline programs at KU Medical Center and elsewhere aim at meeting workforce needs.

Urban agriculture taking root in KC

Fighting crime, teaching children healthy eating habits, creating community. The burgeoning urban-agriculture movement is credited with all this and more by those who have fostered it here.

Lawmaker pledges to revive drug testing bill

Missouri lawmakers approved a drug testing bill and Rep. Kasha Kelley said she'll try again for Kansas

Welfare recipients in Missouri who test positive for illicit drugs after raising the “reasonable suspicion” of a social worker stand to lose their benefits under a bill passed this session by that state's legislature. And an even tougher bill – mandating random drug testing for welfare clients – will be brought up next session in Topeka, said the Kansas lawmaker who has pushed such proposals in the past.

Efforts underway in Kansas City area to combat stigma of mental illness

After Jeremy McDowell’s teenage son made a second suicide attempt, the sports entrepreneur decided to use the power of his business, where nearly 2 million people annually come through the turnstiles, to raise awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness.

Convergence Partnerships

Foundations and other groups forging links with goal of promoting healthier eating and exercise

Faced with alarming trends in obesity, diabetes and related problems, some of the nation’s largest health foundations came together in 2006 in a movement aimed at promoting healthy eating and physical activity. Five years later, that movement, the Convergence Partnership, continues and its work and organizational model are spreading regionally. In Kansas City, one idea under consideration is replacing imported produce in schools and hospitals with food from local farms.

New Children's Campus already has a waiting list

Programs focus on helping low-income children in Kansas City, Kan.

For the kids and their families, the Children's Campus of Kansas City is kind of an island, a haven for learning in the heart of a sometimes difficult urban environment.

Mobile market brings fresh produce to KC’s food deserts

Not only will the Beans & Greens mobile unit shuttle among so-called “food deserts” — places with a dearth of full-line grocery stores — it will offer customers who benefit from food stamps a dollar-for-dollar match when they buy fresh food.

Bremby talks about firing

Former KDHE chief's speech at KCK Community College comes same day as Star report

When Roderick Bremby, former secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, spoke about sustainability to a crowd of about 100 today in at Kansas City, the issue of his November firing by outgoing Gov. Mark Parkinson was never far from the surface.