A legislative committee on Friday is expected to begin a months-long review of the Kansas Health Policy Authority.
“I have to say the timing works out well,” said Joe Tilghman, chairman of the health policy authority board.
“We’ve just lost our executive director and with the budget cuts we’re dealing with this year and the ones we’re expecting next year, this is a good time to stand back and take a look at where we ought to be going,” he said.
Health policy authority executive director Marcia Nielsen last month announced she was returning to the University of Kansas Medical Center where she had been an assistant vice chancellor for health and public policy and a faculty member. Her tenure at the health policy authority ends July 1.
Earlier this year, legislators cut the health policy authority’s operating budget by about 15.5 percent, causing the agency to eliminate 14 positions.
The agency’s top five management positions were reduced to four.
“This is kind of a brave new world for us,” Tilghman said.
Tilghman is scheduled to testify Friday morning before the 12-member Joint Committee on Health Policy Oversight.
“I’ll be looking for some guidance, quite honestly,” he said. “I really want to get their take on what the future looks like, what the budget looks like, what we’ve done well in the past and what we need to do differently in the future.”
Tilghman said the health policy board welcomes the review and is not opposed to change.
“If we’re not performing well, then we ought to be at risk,” he said. “But I think we’re at risk whether we perform well or not because, well, things change. You can’t keep doing what you’ve been doing forever when the environment around you is changing, whether it’s the political, the national or the financial environment.”
Committee members contacted for this story are divided in their assessments of the health policy authority’s role and performance:
• “I hope to see them operating more along the lines of the legislative intent back when they were created, which was to look for solutions for driving down health care costs and to provide more access to health care,” said Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita.
“A lot of what they’ve been doing is just expanding programs,” she said. “A lot of legislators feel like we’ve done that and we know how to do that. We’re not looking for the health policy authority to tell us how to do it.”
Landwehr is vice chairwoman of the health policy oversight committee.
• I think the health policy authority does some things very well — its ability to generate meaningful information and analysis, its consolidation of services, the administrative things…those are all good,” said Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita.
“What I don’t want to see us do is throw everything out and start all over. We should build on what we do well and get specific on what it is we think can be done better,” he said, “because I have to tell a lot of what I hear has more to do with politics than performance.”
• Rep. Bob Bethell, R-Alden, said he’s willing to propose making the health policy authority a cabinet agency that answers to the governor.
“When you look at how much we spend on health care, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have an agency in charge that doesn’t report to the governor or to the Legislature,” Bethell said.
“It needs to be part of the governor’s cabinet,” Bethell said. “It needs to have the governor’s ear and the way it is now, it doesn’t. It’s just out there.”
As created, the health policy authority is governed by an independent board that selects the agency’s executive director. Board members are appointed by the governor and legislative leaders from both parties.
The health policy oversight committee meeting begins at 10 a.m. at the Statehouse, Room 143-N.
Other agenda items:
• An update on long-range planning for the state’s safety-net clinics;
• Developing a long-range vision for public health;
• Setting short- and long-term direction for health information technology and information exchange.
The health policy authority board will meet June 16-17 at the A Place in a Time conference center in Tecumseh.
-Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at dranney@khi.org or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.