Author

Melissa Patrick, Kentucky Health News

Melissa Patrick, Kentucky Health News

Melissa Patrick, staff reporter for Kentucky Health News, is a registered nurse and holds degrees in journalism and community leadership and development from the University of Kentucky. She has received several competitive fellowships, including the 2016-17 Nursing and Health Care Workforce Media Fellow of the Center for Health, Media & Policy, which allowed her to focus on and write about nursing workforce issues in Kentucky, and the year-long Association of Health Care Journalists 2017-18 Regional Health Journalism Program fellowship.

Could an illegal psychedelic substance ease the opioid crisis? Daniel Cameron wants to find out.

By: - June 2, 2023

The head of the commission that manages Kentucky’s opioid-settlement money said Wednesday that the panel will “explore the possibility” of committing “no less than $42 million” to developing a treatment of opioid-use disorder with the psychedelic drug ibogaine, which is not legal in the United States. Gov. Andy Beshear questioned the idea and said it […]

Beshear tries to revive Medicaid dental, vision, hearing benefits scrapped by legislature

By: - May 3, 2023

Gov. Andy Beshear has again proposed regulations to expand dental, vision and hearing Medicaid benefits for Kentucky adults, after the legislature ended the expansion by finding earlier regulations deficient. Each new regulation says why it is “substantially different” from the one rejected by the legislature. Most of the reasons have to do with changes in […]

Cameron announces $8 million in grants to relieve opioid crisis amid sparring over who gets credit

By: - April 28, 2023

Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced the first 24 organizations to receive more than $8 million in grant funding from the state Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission on Thursday, with 14 of the grants going toward treatment and recovery and 10 for prevention of opioid abuse. “The opioid crisis lingers and won’t be defeated merely with these […]

Kentucky legislature scraps new Medicaid benefits for dental, vision, hearing care

By: - March 24, 2023

In October, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear announced the expansion of dental, vision and hearing benefits for 900,000 Kentucky adults on Medicaid. On March 16, the Republican-controlled General Assembly took a final vote to take those benefits away, calling the regulation that created them deficient. Beshear said Thursday that he will find a way to keep […]

3 years after its first reported case, Kentucky has nation’s third-highest COVID-19 infection rate

By: - March 7, 2023

This week marks the third anniversary of the announcement of Kentucky’s first case of COVID-19, a disease that has infected more than 1.7 million Kentuckians and killed 18,130 of them. And while the Covid-19 national emergency and public-health emergency declarations that have been in place since early 2020 will end May 11 and the state […]

Beshear wants ‘scoring criteria,’ Cameron’s appointee prefers flexibility for settlement money

By: - January 23, 2023

This article is republished from Kentucky Health News, an independent news service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. Kentucky’s local and state governments continue to reap more millions from settlements […]

Kentucky counties and cities get first installment of money from national opioid settlements

By: - January 10, 2023

This article is republished from Kentucky Health News, a publication of the?Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues?at the?University of Kentucky. Kentucky’s cities and counties have received their first installment of the state’s money from the national opioid settlement, most of which must be used to combat the opioid epidemic. Knox County Judge-Executive Mike Mitchell […]