Most of Kentucky’s rural counties and a few of its metropolitan areas have too few major care docs and they’re leaving sooner than they are often changed, Sarah Ladd reviews for the Louisville Courier Journal. All instructed, 94% of the counties in a state with poor well being outcomes don’t have sufficient docs.
“Consultants say major care docs might help folks get forward of well being issues earlier than they flip into emergencies, and the scarcity is exacerbating issues in a state that already ranks excessive within the nation for diabetes deaths, coronary heart illness, weight problems and most cancers, amongst different issues,” Ladd reviews.
(Kentucky Main Care Affiliation map, tailored by Kentucky Well being Information.)
Causes given for the shortfall are myriad, together with the pandemic inflicting extra retirements, docs selecting larger paying specialty fields as a substitute of major care, and medical college graduates going to different states.
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Consultants instructed Ladd that a part of the answer is investing in educating physicians in and from the underserved areas.
“We’re trending in a harmful route right here if we don’t have a giant intervention quickly,” Ashley Gibson, director of workforce growth with the Kentucky Main Care Affiliation, instructed Ladd. One resolution, she and Molly Lewis, interim CEO of the affiliation, provided is creating pipelines to get Kentuckians educated in well being professions after which again to working in their very own communities.
Lewis instructed Ladd that ideally 100% of Kentuckians would have a private major care physician, however Ladd reviews that CDC information exhibits that solely about 74% of them mentioned they did in 2020.
Having a private doctor makes it extra seemingly you’ll search preventive care, be updated in your care, be more healthy general more healthy spend much less cash on well being care, Lewis instructed Ladd: “If . . . you’re creating entry to major well being care, then you’re decreasing the necessity for costlier kinds of well being care providers since you’re capable of diagnose, deal with and stop poor well being outcomes.”
Gibson mentioned 40% of Kentuckians reside in rural areas, however solely 17% of the state’s major care docs observe in these locations.
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Kentucky had 58 major care docs per 100,000 residents in 2019, rating it forty fifth within the nation, in response to the American Academy of Household Physicians. Lewis famous College of Kentucky analysis that discovered the state ranked forty fourth in 2021, a bit higher than 2019 however decrease than its 2016 rating of fortieth.
“Federal information present Kentucky had solely 418 extra major care docs in 2016 − the most recent 12 months for which such data is on the market − than it did in 1999, and repeatedly has had lower than lots of its neighboring states,” Ladd notes.
The issue is nationwide. In 2020, the Affiliation of American Medical Faculties predicted that by 2033, the nation could be brief between 21,400 and 55,200 major care physicians.
In Kentucky, a UK report mentioned the state wants so as to add 237 physicians yearly, which outpaces its estimated annual inflow of 116, to hit the nationwide median by 2025.
Assembly this purpose will likely be troublesome, Gibson instructed Ladd, as a result of greater than half of Kentucky’s medical college graduates depart the state to work. Lewis “mentioned it may have one thing to do with college students being from different states and transferring to Kentucky just for their schooling,” Ladd reviews.
Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (3-2) at Kentucky Wildcats (5-0)
Lexington, Kentucky; Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. EST
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BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Wildcats -22.5; over/under is 164
BOTTOM LINE: No. 8 Kentucky takes on Western Kentucky after Koby Brea scored 22 points in Kentucky’s 108-59 win over the Jackson State Tigers.
The Wildcats have gone 4-0 at home. Kentucky is 10th in college basketball averaging 12.6 made 3-pointers per game while shooting 42.3% from downtown. Brea leads the team averaging 4.0 makes while shooting 74.1% from 3-point range.
The Hilltoppers are 0-1 in road games. Western Kentucky ranks third in the CUSA shooting 37.4% from 3-point range.
Kentucky scores 97.0 points, 24.2 more per game than the 72.8 Western Kentucky allows. Western Kentucky averages 9.8 made 3-pointers per game this season, 3.8 more made shots on average than the 6.0 per game Kentucky gives up.
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TOP PERFORMERS: Brea is shooting 74.1% from beyond the arc with 4.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Wildcats, while averaging 16 points.
Julius Thedford averages 2.4 made 3-pointers per game for the Hilltoppers, scoring 11.4 points while shooting 54.5% from beyond the arc.
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
Mark Stoops owns a five-game winning streak in the Governor’s Cup series. The Wildcats have won three games in a row at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium and have not lost to Louisville at Kroger Field since 2017 when Bobby Petrino was holding the call sheet and and Lamar Jackson was playing quarterback. The Wildcats have also covered a lot of spreads in this series.
Stoops is 7-2-1 against-the-spread (ATS) in this series with with covers as a double-digit dog in 2014 and 2016. Kentucky has beaten Louisville outright as a dog three times since 2016 and has covered five straight in this series. Those are not the only trends going in Kentucky’s direction heading into this Week 14 contest.
Louisville is 0-4-1 ATS as a road favorite under Jeff Brohm with outright losses to Pittsburgh and Stanford. Kentucky is 5-0-1 ATS as a dog in its last six outing including four games this season. Kentucky covered numbers as a double-digit dog against Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and Texas this season.
The visitor is 11-3-1 ATS (5-10 outright) in the last 14 meetings of this series with 10 outright wins but Kentucky has won the last two meetings at Kroger Field covering each times as a three-point favorite. In 2019, Kentucky ran away for a 45-13 victory and cruised to a 26-13 victory in 2022.
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Kentucky has consistently overachieved pregame expectations in this series. The Wildcats are currently a 3.5-point dog with a total of 48.5. That’s a projected final score of 26-22.5. Will UK exceed expectations again against Louisville? A win would equal four outright upsets for the Big Blue in the last eight meetings of the series.
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Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats are getting ready to host the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers for an in-state battle in Rupp Arena. This is a game that is always fun as it brings different parts of Kentucky together to share in the state’s favorite pastime, which is basketball.
WKU is 3-2 on the season with wins over Lipscomb, Jackson State, and Campbellsville. The Hilltoppers lost to Wichita State and Grand Canyon.
While Kentucky steamrolled Lipscomb, they are a solid team, and Western Kentucky was able to take them down 66-61, so the Wildcats can’t look past this matchup. This shouldn’t be an issue as Coach Pope respects the game and doesn’t let his team look past an opponent.
While WKU is a solid mid-major team, ESPN doesn’t seem to think the Wildcats will have any issue taking down the Hilltoppers, as they give Kentucky a 97.5% chance to win this game.
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The best player for the Hilltoppers is guard Don McHenry, who is averaging 17.2 points per game five games into the season. The 6’2 guard is shooting 32.4% from three on the season, but he lets a lot of them fly, so the Wildcats can let him get hot from deep.
The goal for this Kentucky team when they take on WKU should be to keep working on defense and rebounding while the offense keeps doing what it has been doing all season long. If the Wildcats can keep improving in these two areas, they will be hard to beat come SEC play and March.
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