- Cities eye more pot dispensary licenses (reviewjournal.com)
Medical marijuana dispensaries are still months away from opening in Southern Nevada and local government officials are already trying to get licenses for more of the expected big-money makers…each in line to collect…hundreds of thousands — of dollars in application, business and license fees…doesn't include the fees from medical pot growhouses, production facilities and testing centers, or the sums municipalities will get from each of those establishments in local property and state-administered sales taxes...
- WEDI makes 4 ICD-10 recommendations to HHS (healthcareitnews.com)
"Without aggressive effort in the time remaining ... lack of readiness may lead to disruption in claims processing."…counting down toward Oct. 1, 2015, the Workgroup for Data Interchange… concern remains… sent a letter to Health and Human Services making four recommendations...
- HHS should expeditiously provide full transparency regarding the readiness of individual Medicaid agencies by state.
- The recently-announced Ombudsman position should be appointed as soon as possible, and WEDI strongly urges CMS to not wait until the compliance deadline to complete this appointment.
- The go-live ICD-10 support plan should include leveraging WEDI's and CMS' implementation support program, which already serves as the central source for collecting ICD-10 (International Classification of Disease) industry issues and solutions.
- Additional outreach is needed in order to help providers with complying with most recent local coverage determination codes.
- ‘Quality Metrics’: FDA’s plan for a key set of measurements to help ensure manufacturers are producing quality medications (blogs.fda.gov)Request for Quality Metrics Guidance for Industry DRAFT GUIDANCE (fda.gov)
release of draft guidance for the pharmaceutical industry called, "Request for Quality Metrics." …describes a set of measurements to …evaluate the quality of the facilities and the processes that manufacturers use to make FDA-regulated drugs and biologics…encourages…manufacturers to conduct robust quality measurements on their own products..We look forward to receiving comments..
- Marijuana dispensary considers lawsuit over delayed opening (reviewjournal.com)
Frustrated by what they call arbitrary actions by Clark County officials that have delayed their opening, the owners of a medical marijuana dispensary (Euphoria Wellness) are considering legal action…. it has not been able to get enough marijuana to sell… Other issues, including the state’s pesticide rules, also have contributed to delays..
- Medicare’s three-day rule may lead to longer-than-needed hospital stays (fiercehealthcare.com)
Medicare's rule that says patients must stay in the hospital for three days before it will cover their care in a skilled nursing facility may not be helping patients,…costing Medicare plans money… the average hospital length of stay decreased for patients whose plans eliminated the rule, while it increased for those that still applied the rule…
- Extended FDA Track & Trace deadline a boon for Rx (healthcareitnews.com)
Health system pharmacy managers…got a reprieve when the Food and Drug Administration moved the deadline for compliance with the Drug Supply Chain Security Act to November 1, 2015… outlines critical steps to build an electronic, interoperable system to identify and trace certain prescription drugs as they are distributed.. dispensers have to maintain tracing files – a document for every purchase transaction…
- EU suspends sale of 700 generic drugs made in India (news.yahoo.com)
European Union nations have until August 20 to suspend the sale of some 700 generic drugs made in India,...after an Indian firm contracted by drug companies to test the medications was found to have manipulated data...On-site verifications....showed irregularities "in each and every one of the nine trials inspected,"