Getting back on topic, the word around town is that they need to make this negative KMSF/University of Kentucky publicity “Go Away”. Clearly the new approach is not to obey the open records laws, is not to accept the decisions of the state’s Attorney General’s office and is not to become a truly transparent and aboveboard company that is part of the University of Kentucky. The new approach is simply a propaganda campaign that is designed to draw attention away from the issues of transparency with respect to what they are doing with the revenue generated by the physician faculty working in this public university hospital. In case any of you outside the university reading this blog are unaware, what I am referring to here is the recent onslaught of 3 propaganda Lexington Herald Leader editorial articles submitted by 2 KMSF board members (one being the current president of KMSF, and both of course are university College of Medicine faculty members) and by a retired KMSF employee:
http://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article98189362.html
http://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article99688042.html
http://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article99689932.html
that were written in response to this front page Herald Leader article entitled, “How the secretive arm of UK Healthcare spends $200 million a year”.
http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article96631937.html
All these propaganda editorial articles praise the accomplishments of KMSF and claim it is an open and aboveboard organization. They claim to have no secrets but want you to trust them in this regard. Of course none of this would have been necessary if KMSF would have not started suing people for requesting open records that might provide information on what KMSF is doing with all of the money this public university nonprofit hospital is making. The bottom line for me is, if KMSF is doing nothing but good things with this money, why is KMSF willing to break the law to prevent people from knowing about these great things?
Once again, KMSF was created by the University of Kentucky, is run by the faculty and staff of this public university and the revenue generated by this public university hospital belongs to this public university and not KMSF. If KMSF is unwilling to accept the fact that it is part of this university and therefore must obey the laws that relate to a public university, one very reasonable solution is to simply stop doing business with KMSF and form our own medical services foundation. Call it “University of Kentucky Medical Services Foundation” if you will, or simply UKMSF. I feel certain we currently have the experienced personnel to do this, or we would shortly after they no longer had jobs with KMSF.