Okay folks, just another talking point that has relevance to the Dr. Paul Kearney case. The State of Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway has ruled that, because the Kentucky Medical Services Foundation (KMSF: a nonprofit entity that pays all UK doctors) was created by UK and remains under its control, it is by definition a public agency and is subject to the state's Open Records Act. You may ask, “What relevance does this have to the Paul Kearney case?” To begin with, many believe that it was Dr. Kearney’s audacious request of an audit of KMSF at a College of Medicine Faculty Council meeting that initiated the cascade of punitive measures taken by the hospital administration against Dr. Kearney. During that meeting Dr. Michael Karpf, the executive VP for health affairs, threatened Dr. Kearney after this request. Secondly, the Dan Ross case cited below suspiciously points to illegal use of KMSF administered hospital revenue to fund state research initiatives, and lastly, these issues would have never made it to the state attorney general’s office if it wasn’t for the simple fact that KMSF and the lawyers at UK were resistant to either releasing these public records or highly selective to both whom they release the public records to as well as which records they are willing to release. The UK lawyers have yet to decide whether they will appeal this decision, and my guess is that they will put it off for as long as possible or at least until the new Attorney General, Andy Beshear, takes office in January.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but does it not seem strange that the University’s hospital administration and the attorneys for this public taxpayer financed institution should be so resistant to (one might say scared of) an audit of their financial practices? As I pointed out in my letter to President Capilouto, “If you want to silence some of those critics and "ill-informed rants" have a public audit performed on hospital and KMSF finances for the past 10 years.” I know as a taxpayer of this state that I would like to know that my taxes are supporting a public institution with integrity.
Feel free to comment with your thoughts on the matter. The URLs for 3 documents relevant to this situation are below.
http://www.kentucky.com/2015/11/09/4130017/attorney-general-medical-foundation.html
http://ag.ky.gov/civil/orom/2015/15ORD205.doc
https://cases.justia.com/kentucky/court-of-appeals/2011-ca-000433-mr.pdf?ts=1388761332