- Nevada high court taking up execution drug supply question (lasvegassun.com)
The Nevada Supreme Court is considering whether to put the brakes on oral arguments slated later this week on a bid by the state to resume planning the twice-postponed lethal injection of an inmate who says he wants to die...The high court called for a written response by Tuesday from state attorneys after pharmaceutical firms said there's no need to rush...The state attorney general's office has argued that unless the Supreme Court rules by mid-October whether the execution can proceed, some drugs will expire.
- Nevada drops plan for extra Medicaid paperwork for mental health care (reviewjournal.com)
Nevada Medicaid will reverse its decision to require prior authorization for mental health services after providers and patients raised concerns that the policy change could delay treatment...The Division of Health Care Financing and Policy will hold a public hearing in October to rescind prior authorization requirements for psychotherapy and neurotherapy services, including “talk therapy” and biofeedback. Medicaid behavioral health supervisor Alexis Tucey announced the change Tuesday at a public workshop in Las Vegas...The policy approved in August will still take effect Oct. 1, giving providers five sessions with a patient before they are required to submit additional documentation to the state Medicaid office...The change came as a relief to providers who were worried they would have to stop seeing patients while waiting for approval of additional sessions or risk denial of payment by continuing to see clients to avoid disruption in care...
- Nevada seeks emergency order to block disclosure of physician in planned Dozier execution (thenevadaindependent.com)
Nevada officials have filed an emergency request with the state Supreme Court seeking to block a lower court’s decision to release the identity of the attending physician scheduled to oversee the delayed execution of Scott Raymond Dozier...In an emergency motion...the attorney general’s office, representing the Nevada Department of Corrections, is seeking to block a...decision by District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez. The judge said the state must reveal the name of the physician set to oversee Dozier’s execution to attorneys representing one of the drug manufacturers whose product will be used in the execution...Although Gonzalez’s order would limit disclosure of the physician’s identity to the attorneys for drug manufacturer Alvogen, the state wrote in its emergency request that the attending physician would only oversee the execution “to the extent their anonymity is protected from disclosure” and that even a limited disclosure of individuals involved in the execution wasn’t relevant and would limit the state’s ability to carry out the execution...“The drug manufacturers should not be permitted to go on a fishing expedition for information that can be used to harass individuals who assist the State in carrying out lawful executions,” attorneys with the state wrote in the filing. “The intended effect is to scare people away from assisting the State. This tactic is well-documented and, unfortunately, has been effective in stopping executions.”
- WCSD: Board will consider opening health care contract to other providers like St. Mary’s (rgj.com)
The Washoe County school board may open bidding for the district’s multi-million-dollar healthcare contract, school officials confirmed...The contract has been a point of conflict between the district and local healthcare provider Saint Mary’s Medical Group, which has said it was unfairly excluded from the bidding process — potentially at the expense of the district’s employees...The current proposal being weighed by the school board is an exclusive 3-year contract with Renown Health and its insurance arm Hometown Health, the district’s current health care provider. That plan would raise the cost of health insurance premiums by 10 percent in 2019...It's unclear if the move to accept other healthcare proposals comes too late to curb potential premium increases for 2019.
- Reno and Sparks Chamber of Commerce becomes latest to offer association health plan to small businesses (thenevadaindependent.com)
The Reno and Sparks Chamber of Commerce announced...will begin offering an association health plan to its small business members in partnership with Prominence Health Plan, following in the footsteps of four other chambers of commerce in Southern Nevada that unveiled similar plans with other insurance companies last month...Small businesses that are members of the chamber will be able to purchase medical coverage through Prominence and dental, vision and life insurance through Kansas City Life...The Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Clark County Health Plan Association, a partnership of three smaller Southern Nevada chambers, each announced plans last month to begin offering association health plans to their members in the wake of a rule released by the Department of Labor in June loosening the rules on such plans. The new rule exempts association health plans from providing the essential health benefits required under the Affordable Care Act, eliminates restrictions based on geography and allows companies in different industries in the same region to provide coverage together...
- The Latest: Nevada top doctor has no US medical license (ktvn.com)
The Latest on a court hearings on a pharmaceutical companies lawsuit to stop Nevada from using their drugs for a lethal injection...Nevada's top doctor isn't licensed to practice medicine in the United States...Ihsan Azzam testified in Las Vegas...that he has a master's degree and worked for several years in environmental public health and epidemiology before being named chief state medical officer last May...Azzam says he practiced for several years as an obstetrics and gynecology physician in Africa before moving to the United States in the 1990s...That qualifies Azzam for the job under Nevada state law...Azzam testified that while he has no background in anesthesia or pain management, he says the doses of three drugs proposed for an inmate's lethal injection would be enough to kill a mammoth.
- FEMA releases after-action report on Las Vegas shooting (reviewjournal.com)Oct. 1 after-action report does not address confusion over UMC’s status (reviewjournal.com)FEMA 1 October After-Action Report (scribd.com)
Las Vegas police and Clark County firefighters experienced numerous communication problems and failed to follow some protocols on the night of the Oct. 1 mass shooting...But the 61-page report also described the response to the attack — which left 58 concertgoers dead and more than 800 people injured — as “efficient” and “coordinated,” crediting the counter-terrorism training of Las Vegas police...The Federal Emergency Management Agency created the report with participation from the Metropolitan Police Department and the Clark County Fire Department. It took nearly a year to complete and includes 72 lessons learned.
The after-action report...makes no mention of confusion surrounding University Medical Center’s bed availability in the immediate aftermath of the...shooting...The report, commissioned with “the intent of distributing best practices and lessons learned for other communities around the country to better prepare for a mass casualty incident,” did not address communication issues surrounding the county-run hospital’s status. Nor does it mention the county-run hospital’s improper use of an “internal disaster” alert.
- Nevada prisons drug buyer knew firms opposed execution use (kolotv.com)
Nevada's prisons pharmacy chief says she ordered and obtained lethal injection drugs this year despite knowing drug manufacturers didn't want their products used for executions...Linda Fox's drug purchases allowed Nevada to plan its first execution since 2006 using a never-before-tried three-drug combination...She testified...that she didn't specify the end use when she obtained medications from a third-party supplier, not the drug makers...Fox was pressed by lawyers representing drug companies a day after the state's prisons chief provided sworn testimony about having trouble obtaining drugs for executions...
- Doctor disciplined for looking up Vegas shooter drug records (ktvn.com)Doctor accused of looking up Oct. 1 gunman’s prescriptions keeps license (reviewjournal.com)
A doctor has been disciplined by Nevada state pharmacy regulators after he was accused of improperly looking up prescription records of the dead gunman in last October's mass shooting in Las Vegas...Attorney E. Brent Bryson said Thursday that Dr. Ivan Goldsmith has to pay $26,000 in fines and attorney fees but keeps his license to prescribe medicines if he completes a year of probation...Goldsmith was accused of improperly looking up gunman Stephen Paddock's patient profile and disclosing to the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Paddock had been prescribed diazepam, an anti-anxiety drug better known as Valium.
- State OKs contract to move off federal health insurance exchange platform (lasvegassun.com)Nevada health exchange rates expected to see lowest rise yet (lasvegassun.com)
Nevada is looking to save more than $18 million by transitioning the state’s health insurance exchange from healthcare.gov to its own platform under a newly approved contract...The Board of Examiners...approved contracts...that included a $24.4 million, five-year deal with GetInsured for the platform and a call center. The move will save the exchange $18.9 million through 2023 as costs rise to use healthcare.gov, said Heather Korbulic, executive director of the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange...The GOP tax law’s elimination of the individual mandate — a tax penalty for certain people without insurance intended to encourage healthy people to buy plans, which helps stabilize the marketplace — is expected to raise average premiums about 10 percent almost annually for a decade, according to a November 2017 Congressional Budget Office report...Korbulic said a state-run platform will not only save the state money but help protect Nevada from much of the uncertainty in the market as federal health care policies remain in flux. She has said moving away from healthcare.gov would give the exchange more data to understand demographics that are being reached and those that need more targeted resources