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A federal judge blocked the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from suspending a Louisiana drug distributor from selling controlled substances over allegations it failed to identify suspicious orders of opioids that were diverted for illicit uses...U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Foote in Shreveport, Louisiana, on Tuesday entered a temporary restraining order blocking the DEA from enforcing an order issued last week that immediately suspended Morris & Dickson Co’s registration...The DEA’s order marked the first time during President Donald Trump’s administration that it had moved to immediately block narcotic sales by a distributor as the agency attempts to combat a national opioid abuse epidemic...The DEA on Friday announced it was suspending the registration of privately-held Morris & Dickson, saying the distributor failed to properly identify large, suspicious orders of drugs sold to independent pharmacies.

The Healthy Nevada Project is opening up 5,000 more testing slots for people interested in their genetics study...researchers at Renown Health and DRI have partnered with Helix to assess personal health risks of Nevadans and build a demographic profile of our area...Since kicking off the second phase of the Healthy Nevada Project, researchers have collected 10,000 DNA samples.

...Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb....questioned whether rebates that drugmakers provide to health insurers should remain protected by federal law, sparking new concerns on Wall Street over efforts to curb drug pricing...Gottlieb was referring to the common practice of pharmaceutical companies setting a high “list price” for a drug, and then lowering the cost for health plans through hefty rebates in exchange for the broadest access to patients. In recent weeks, he has criticized these practices for keeping drug prices high and locking out competitors...“What if we took on this system directly, by having the federal government reexamine the current safe harbor for drug rebates under the Anti-Kickback Statute?”...“Such a step could help restore some semblance of reality to the relationship between list and negotiated prices, and thereby boost affordability and competition.”...The anti-kickback law makes it illegal to pay an incentive for drugs or services that Medicare, Medicaid or other federal healthcare programs cover...

The head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said...it's time that health care catches up with other industries when it comes to providing consumers greater transparency about prices up front and easier access to their records and health data once they have received care..."We know that any other place in the economy you can know what things are going cost. Somehow in health care it's a big mystery," said CMS administrator Seema Verma...CMS issued a series of new proposals aimed at promoting greater interoperability of digital health-care records. They include forcing hospitals to post their prices online, and pushing them to transfer patients' discharge records to their doctors electronically, even if the doctors are not part of the same health system...Doctors who treat Medicare patients are already required to write prescriptions electronically. CMS now wants them to also make it easier for patients to access those records digitally...The administration's 2019 budget outline includes a proposal to give Medicare Part D plans for seniors more power to negotiate lower prices from manufacturers, and it initiates a pilot program that would allow state Medicaid programs to test drug formularies aimed getting more competitive prices...

Legislation backed by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores to help address the opioid abuse epidemic was passed today by the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill – the Every Prescription Conveyed Securely Act (H.R. 3528) – would require electronic prescribing for Schedule II through V controlled substances prescriptions covered under Medicare Part D to help prevent fraud, abuse and waste...Leveraging the benefits of electronic prescribing to help address the opioid abuse epidemic is one of the priority policy recommendations of NACDS, based on the experiences of pharmacists on the front lines of healthcare delivery.”...The concept of the Every Prescription Conveyed Securely Act maintains strong public support. In a January 2018 national survey conducted by Morning Consult...76% supported rules that all prescriptions must be handled electronically, rather than by paper or fax, as a way to help address the opioid abuse epidemic...The Senate companion legislation of the Every Prescription Conveyed Securely Act is S. 2460, introduced by Sens. Michael Bennet (D, Colo.) and Dean Heller (R, Nev.)...would need to be passed...prior to its proceeding to President Trump for consideration and signature...

...Drug Enforcement Administration said...it had suspended a Louisiana pharmaceutical distributor from selling controlled substances for allegedly selling unusually large quantities of opioids to pharmacies without reporting the sales...Morris & Dickson Co...investigation showed “it failed to properly identify large suspicious orders for controlled substances sold to independent pharmacies with questionable need for the drugs.”...Morris & Dickson filed in federal court...an injunction against the suspension, and U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Foote in Shreveport has scheduled a hearing...on its request for a temporary restraining order...The probe, which focused on purchases of Oxycodone and Hydrocodone, showed that in some cases, pharmacies were allowed to buy as much as six times the quantity of narcotics they would normally order...

The All of Us initiative, which will be launched on May 6, aims to compile detailed health profiles of 1 million Americans, with a special focus on communities historically underrepresented in biomedical research...The program, which began as a pilot last year, is the most ambitious attempt yet to compile health and behavioral data, as well as genetic sequencing, from a representative sample of the American population. It will collect electronic health records, survey data, and even information from its participants’ wearable fitness devices – with the goal of helping scientists better understand how to craft personalized treatments, seen by many as the future of biomedicine...

The Nevada Supreme Court heard oral arguments...in the case of a death row inmate who wants the state to put him to death with a lethal injection method never before used in Nevada or elsewhere...Scott Raymond Dozier, 47, is a death row inmate convicted in Clark County of the 2002 killing and dismemberment of Jeremiah Miller...also...has repeatedly expressed his desire to give up his appeals and be put to death...Dozier’s lawyers are particularly concerned that the execution protocol calls for a paralytic (cisatracurium) in addition to two other drugs (fentanyl and diazepam) meant to kill the defendant...the paralytic doesn’t serve a medical purpose but is only included to mask signs of distress, potentially hiding any indicators of a painful or botched killing...The issue the court must decide is whether the state’s use of the paralytic in the execution violates Dozier’s right, under the Nevada and U.S. constitutions, to avoid any cruel and unusual punishment...

Laura Joszt, Managing Editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

Laura Joszt, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.