- Controversial Medicaid Policy Change Proposal Being Amended After Public Feedback (ktvn.com)
A policy change proposal that could affect Medicaid's behavioral health patients drew plenty of public opposition...The policy would require prior authorization for Neurotherapy and Psychotherapy Medicaid patients to demonstrate medical necessity before they receive treatment...The Department of Health and Human Services and the Division of Health Care Financing and Policy held a workshop to hear feedback from the public about their proposal. The department says they are now revising this policy proposal, after hearing those concerns...Officials said this policy would help both the most vulnerable patients as well as the administrative staff; but opponents strongly disagreed...
- Pharmaceutical sales reps gave monetary compensation to two in five Nevada doctors they lobbied, report finds (thenevadaindependent.com)Senate Bill 539 Report: Compensation and Samples Distributed by Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives in Nevada (dhhs.nv.gov)
Two in five Nevada physicians lobbied by pharmaceutical sales representatives in the last three months of 2017 received monetary compensation, according to a report released earlier this month by the Department of Health and Human Services...The department found that 42 percent of doctors, or 396 physicians, identified in reports made to the state received some amount of monetary compensation from pharmaceutical reps between October and December, while 58 percent only received samples. But the report is also telling in what it is unable to say, with only about half of the states’ 2,572 active pharmaceutical reps detailing their doctor lobbying activities and only 13 percent of submitted reports containing enough information to tie the data back to licensed Nevada physicians...Of the small percentage of data it was able to collect and analyze, the state identified a total of 954 doctors that either received direct compensation, samples or both from pharmaceutical sales representatives, with 396 of them receiving direct compensation. (Nevada had a little under 6,000 active physicians as of March 2018.)...The report is the first formal product released as a result of Nevada’s new drug pricing transparency law. The state will be required to compile another report after it receives certain data related to the costs and profits associated with manufacturing and selling so-called essential diabetes drugs from drug manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers, who are the middlemen in the drug pricing process...The drug lobby is continuing to challenge the constitutionality of those reporting requirements in U.S. District Court after final regulations were approved last month.
- Healthy Nevada Project Adds 5,000 Testing Slots (ktvn.com)
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.
- Nevada State Board of Pharmacy – April Newsletter (bop.nv.gov)
Contraceptive Prescriptions
Prescription Readers
What Pharmacists Need to Know About AB 474
National Pharmacy Compliance News
- FDA Requires Labeling Update on Opioid-Containing Cough and Cold Medicines
- Latest NDTA Shows Opioids Pose Significant Impact to Public Health
- FDA Recognizes Eight European Drug Regulatory Authorities Capable of Conducting Inspections
- Incorrect Use of Insulin Pens at Home Can Cause Severe Hyperglycemia
- FDA Advises on Opioid Addiction Medications and Benzodiazepines
- Only About 3% of Pharmacies and Other Entities Voluntarily Maintain a Prescription Drug Disposal Bin, GAO Reports
- One in Five Drivers Uses a Prescription Drug That Can Impair Driving Despite Receiving Warnings
- PTCB CPhT Program Earns Accreditation From the American National Standards Institute
- Big Pharma abandons lawsuit over Nevada’s insulin pricing transparency law after state approves trade secret protection regulations (thenevadaindependent.com)Nevada Addresses SB 539’s Most Significant Flaws (phrma.org)
Two national drug lobbying organizations dropped a lawsuit Thursday challenging the constitutionality of Nevada’s first-in-the-nation insulin pricing transparency law a little less than a month after the state approved regulations allowing drug companies to protect certain information they turn over to the state from public disclosure...Attorneys representing two associations and the state agreed in a joint court filing that the newly adopted regulations resolve drug companies’ concerns that the new law would require manufacturers of diabetes drugs to disclose trade secret-protected information in conflict with federal law and in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The decision to abandon a legal fight comes nine months after the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization challenged the law in U.S. District Court.
- Nevada sets 1st execution since 2006 after fight over drugs (tri-cityherald.com)Judge OKs Nevada execution, but questions about drugs remain (rgj.com)
Dozier's death warrant was signed by Clark County District Court Judge Jennifer Togliatti, who last November blocked the execution over concerns that one drug in the three-drug protocol would immobilize the inmate and mask any signs of pain and suffering. The warrant didn't address her previous concerns..."The (state) Supreme Court never decided whether Mr. Dozier would experience extreme pain, or if he would suffocate to death, or if this protocol is constitutionally adequate," ACLU legal director Amy Rose said Wednesday. She conceded that her group didn't have legal standing to act on Dozier's behalf unless he asks for it...Dozier, 47, has said he wants to die and doesn't really care if he experiences pain. But he did let a team of federal public defenders challenge the drugs and method that Nevada prison officials planned to use...Nevada and other states have struggled in recent years to find drugs after pharmaceutical companies and distributors banned their use for executions...
- Nevada opioid panel updated on efforts to reduce painkiller toll (reviewjournal.com)
The governor’s task force on the opioid crisis met for the second time...to receive a progress report on its efforts to rein in abuse and death resulting from prescription painkillers...Representatives of health care organizations and Nevada officials told members of the Governor’s Opioid State Action Accountability Task Force that progress was being made on four priorities identified by the panel at its first meeting...: prescriber education, treatment options, data collection and criminal justice interventions...Specifics included obtaining federal funding for three new treatment centers; development of informational presentations for schools and law enforcement; distribution of the opioid reversal drug naloxone to law enforcement; and creation of the Opioid Dashboard, a publicly available collection of state data related to the epidemic...At the task force’s third meeting in July, presenters promised to present updates on other task force goals, including identifying ways to compile real-time overdose data...
- Audit: Licensing boards ignoring directive on salaries, some paying above statutory caps (thenevadaindependent.com)
More than half of Nevada occupational licensing boards aren’t following a 2010 directive to keep their salaries in line with state employees, and another 12 percent are paying salaries above caps set in state law...A report presented...to members of the state’s executive audit committee — composed of the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and controller — detailed various oversight issues with the state’s nearly three dozen occupational licensing boards on everything from executive compensation to inconsistencies in how boards manage their finances...The audit — and the somewhat testy responses from several licensing boards — underlined a consistent pressure between the semi-autonomous regulatory bodies and the governor’s office, which is nominally in charge of regulating them...The audit reported that at least four of the boards — Pharmacy, Medical, Contractors and Accountancy — paid out salaries above the limit set in state law, which caps most salaries for state employees at 95 percent of the governor’s annual $149,753 salary...The boards presented a variety of reasons for paying their executive directors above the limit set in law. The State Board of Pharmacy wrote in a response to the audit that the salary figure included contributions to the state’s retirement fund and pointed to conflicting language in state law that gave the board the ability to determine the executive director’s salary...The audit suggested that boards were overpaying executive directors between $28,000 and $59,000 on average compared to similar positions for state employees...
- Supreme Court hears arguments on untested lethal injection method for inmate who’s asking to die (thenevadaindependent.com)Nevada Supreme Court overturns lower court ban on using a paralytic in Scott Dozier execution, citing procedural issues (thenevadaindependent.com)
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...
- Nevada’s death rate from meth, other stimulants highest in nation (reviewjournal.com)
Nevada’s amphetamine death rate is highest in the nation and will soon eclipse the state’s prescription opioid death rate if current trends continue, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...The death rate in Nevada attributed to “psychostimulants” — a class of drugs that includes methamphetamine, ecstasy and ADHD prescription drugs like Adderall and Ritalin — hit 7.5 per 100,00 in 2016, up nearly 32 percent from 2015. Prescription opioid deaths fell about 9 percent in the same time period, from 9.8 per 100,000 to 8.9 per 100,000...unlike opioids, there’s no overdose antidote...if prevention resources were devoted equally to opioid and amphetamine overdose, that could cut down on abuse and, ultimately, death...What’s needed...is public education that stresses that using amphetamines can be lethal, not just from overdose but because they can impact organ function and can be laced with opioids like synthetic fentanyl, a deadly substance...