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University Daily Kansan, April 10, 1981 Page 9
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Senate begins work on medical scholarship bill
By BRAD STERTZ Staff Reporter
*TOPEKA-The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee yesterday ended work on the House Version of the Kansas medical student scholarship limitation bill and quickly joined the committeework on a similar Sepale bill.
State Rep. Mike Hayden, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said his committee had not rushed work on the scholarship bill because they knew
the Senate was working on the same issue.
THE SCHOOLARSHIP is available to students in or entering the University of Kansas College of Allied Health. Students participating in the scholarship agree to practice medicine in Kansas after their academic years or face repayment of the scholarship in 10 years at 10 percent interest.
That issue is the reduction of the number of medical scholarships available and changes in the payback program of the scholarship.
that students were using the scholarship more for an easy low-interest loan than for a scholarship. These lawmakers said the state was losing money from the scholarship because students preferred not to stay in Kansas to practice.
Many legislators had been concerned
Hayden said the committees'
"We kind of had an agreement with the Senate committee to let their version of the issue go through," Hayden said. "So what we did was to hold out our bill and let their ideas get thought."
'81 legislative session closes
By BRAD STERT7
Staff Represent
Staff Reporter
TOPEKA-In a flurry of activity yesterday the Kansas House and Senate concluded the initial portion of the 1981 session. The Legislature will reconvene on April 29 to review vetoes on bills by Gov John Carlin.
Although both houses made a frenied attempt to finish as much legislation as possible, there were still several items that remained to be either worked on in the veto session or forgotten until next session.
One such bill was a measure that would have allowed the Kansas Board of Regents to enter into a reciprocal agreement with another state's university for a degree in land surveying. This would have guaranteed Kansas students a spot in the other universities' rogram.
"Usually those kind of bills do not get worked on then," she said. "But you never know what someone might do. It can happen when they to run it through if they wanted to."
THAT BILL was before the House yesterday, but did not receive a vote. State Rep. Betty Jo Charlton, D-Lawrence, said that the likelihood of that bill getting final action during the veto session was slim.
Another bill that was passed by the $ Senate, did not receive House approval, was a measure to limit the number of campus in emergency situations.
That bill would have limited campus police, game wardens and the Capitol Security Patrol from investigating
murders, kidnappings and attempts to
murder and kidnap.
The genesis for that bill stemmed from many legislators' disapproval of the way that the KU Police Department handled the murder of a doctor and a patient at the University of Kansas Medical Center last month.
Bills that the Legislature did pass before the adjournment included one that would have settled a civil claim against the university of Kansas.
In the wailing hours of the session, a conference committee agreed with the recommendation that $21,000 out of the general fund should be paid to Raymond Sieradan for damages incurred while a student at KU.
Sieradam, Atchison senior, was infected with typhoid when he was working with a microbiology class. He then sued the state for damages. With the bill, however, the claim would be settled once the chancellor signed the settlement and Sieradam signed a formal release from all claims.
Earlier in the session, members of the House Ways and Means Committee said that the University should pay half in order to "teach them a lesson."
THE MONEY for the settlement would come from the state's general fund, but half of it would be paid from KU's portion of the general fund.
In a quick turnabout, seven senators decided yesterday that they would vote for changing the Kansas Open Meetings law.
Initially the senators had voted to kill the measure, but on the final vote they reversed their stand and passed a bill that would force them to meet privately on land acquisition decisions and employee discussion matters.
STATE SEN. Fred Kerr, R-Pratt,
said he brought the motion to reco-
nseble because he was asked to do so by
Senate President Ross Doyen. Doyen
said he wanted the changes because a
strict interpretation of the law would
have prevented even small groups of
legislators from meeting casually.
State Senators who switched their stand were: Ron Hein, R-Topeka; Paul Hess, R-Wichita; Mike Johnston, R-Merrill; Merrill R, JRunction City; Garald Kerk, D-Demora; Bill Mulich, D-Kansas City; and Kerr.
Kansas drivers' insurance rates could rise because of a bill passed by the Legislature yesterday. This bill would require automobile operators to raise in order to cover for the inflation impact on the insurance industry.
The bill would increase one-person bodily injury rates from $15,000 to $25,000. The bill would also increase the total bodily injury rates from $30,000 to $50,000 and the property damage rate from $5,000 to $10,000.
Also passed by the Legislature in the final day's work was a bill that outlawed strip searches of non-violent misdemeasure or traffic violations. The exception would be if there was probable cause for the search.
The bill provided that the strip searches allowed could be conducted only in private by a member of the same sex.
It also made body cavity searches illegal except when performed by doctors or registered nurses. The bills require a $2,000 fine for violations of the law.
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agreement was based on the desire to get more support for the bill.
"What that kind of thing does, is give the Senate's view of the issue to us and then we can simply refine parts." Hayden said. "In subcommittee we will add some of the items we worked on in our bills."
therefore raise the interest rates on the scholarship to 12 percent."
Although the House session was officially adjourned until April 29 by House Speaker Wendell Lady yesterday, Hayden said there would still be his committee to get the scholarship and ready for approval on the floor.
"We can still co it," he said. "Veto sessions are busy, but there will be time for us to work it out."
THAT STEP, the step onto the House floor, would be the final one before the bill received Gov. John Carlin's desk. Carlin would not comment yesterday about his feelings on the scholarship bill.
Hayden, however, did comment about what the House Ways and Means subcommittee was expected to do with the bill. He said the subcommittee did
not want to abolish the scholarship, as suggested in another bill before the committee, but wanted to make several major changes.
One complaint many legislators had made about the scholarship was that if the current rate of students on the campus was 60%, thatnas would be overridden with doctors.
Chief among those changes, he said, was a plan to reduce the number of scholarships available from an enrollment number to 100 for entering freshmen.
"Obviously, we cannot change the scholarships that students have already entered into," Hayden said. "So it will enable 1822 that we can put this into effect."
Hayden also said the subcommittee would change the repayment provision in scholarships. That change would be from 10 years with installment payment of the money to five years with an option to pay in one lump sum.
Another major change the subcommittee was expected to make was an interest rate change on the penalty repayment provision.
"We wanted to make the interest on these scholarships that defaulted more like car loan interest rates," Hayden said. "The subcommittee, I tinkl, will
Current interest rates on the payback plan is 10 percent.
EVEN WITH THE CHANGES, however, the scholarships would not be affected until fiscal year 1982.
Hayden said that was also the reason why the nursing scholarship proposal had to be held until next year's session.
Earlier in the week Hayden said he was interested in establishing a scholarship for nursing students in the scholarship for medical students.
"We have to start that one when we see the effects of the changes," he said. "We have to do that because we have to synchronize the money saved from the medical scholarship changes to allow students to receive the nursing scholarships."
Med Center ready to update two separate billing systems
By JANE FORMAN CIGARD Staff Reporter
Problems with billing procedures at the University of Kansas Medical Center have prompted KU officials to introduce a few ways to improve the present system.
Keith Nichter, University director of business affairs, and Tom Greeson, Med Center associate director of business affairs, told the Board of Regents Health Education Committee last month that multiple billings and delays resulted because of Center's two separate billing systems.
One patient billing system is for inpatients and one for outpatients.
These systems make it impossible to combine billings if a person received treatment both as an inpatient and an outpatient, Nitcher said last week.
THE BILLING is complicated further if more than one member of a family was treated at the Med Center or is on Medicare or welfare, he said.
Mike McKeynolds, Med Center
this procedure occasionally resulted in
some patients receiving multiple billings.
Nitcher explained that although the Med Center did have a data-based computer system to handle some of the billing, it was slow and did not provide a lot of the data needed to get the billing out.
"We have met with the director of the computer center and other hospital officials to develop a set of tools that the team will use system ought to contain", "Nithed said.
One question was whether to buy new software to update the existing computer system or to use a computer service bureau. Nitcher said.
Software are new computer programs that could be purchased and adapted for use with the present computer.
AN ALTERNATIVE would be to purchase the time-sharing services of a professional computer processing firm to handle the billing, he said.
In addition to patient billing difficulties, the Med Center also has had problems collecting Medicaid bills owed to them by the State Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services. Currently, the Med Center is $1.8
million behind in its collection of SRS bills.
University officials were unsure how the shortfall developed but were working with SRS administrators to work with Acting Chancellor Dinkel Shankel.
Although the proposed Med Center billing system was still in the planning stage, Nitcher said he hoped specific recommendations would be available soon.
Applications for Kansan available
Applications for summer and fall 1981 Kanister editor and business manager are available at the office of student affairs in 214 Strong Hall, at the Student Senate office in 105B of the Kansas Union and in 105 Filt Hall. Completed applications are due at 5 p.m. April 21 in 105 Filt.