- Nevada leaders want Heller to explain how key parts of ACA will be replaced if measure is repealed (reviewjournal.com)
The top two Democrats in the Nevada Legislature are calling on U.S. Sen. Dean Heller to explain how Republicans in Congress will replace key provisions of the Affordable Care Act if they repeal it...Aaron Ford and Jason Frierson...sent a letter...posing...questions to Nevada’s senior senator in Congress...the state leaders asked what steps will be taken to ensure people who purchased coverage through the state exchange and those who receive federal tax credits will still be able to buy affordable insurance...what will be done to ensure more than 217,000 Nevadans receiving coverage under expanded Medicaid eligibility will remain covered; guarantees for women’s health care; and continued mandates to cover people with pre-existing conditions and allow parents to keep children on their policies until age 26...“I would anticipate nobody’s going to lose their health care for the next two or three years until the replacement is put in place,” Heller said...
- Sandoval’s prescription drug abuse summit begins Wednesday (reviewjournal.com)Drug summit develops blueprint to combat opioid abuse in Nevada (reviewjournal.com)
Gov. Brian Sandoval has called physicians, politicians and law enforcement officials to a summit meeting this week to address the national opioid epidemic’s impact on Nevada...The Prescription Drug Abuse Summit...at the MGM Grand will focus on issues that include oversight of pain management clinics, physicians’ drug prescription practices and alternatives to opioid medications..."Nevada has established policies that have become national models in prescription drug monitoring and ongoing coordination between the public and private sector. I am proud of what we have accomplished, but there is more work to be done," Sandoval said...Featured speakers at the summit will include U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin…
- Sandoval opens summit, calls drug abuse one of deadliest epidemics (reviewjournal.com)
Prescription drug addiction, the downward spiral of lives ruined, loved ones lost, and the cost to society were the focus of a daylong meeting convened...by Gov. Brian Sandoval, who called the problem a crisis...Without question this is one of the most important health challenges we currently face...calling prescription drug abuse "one of the deadliest epidemics" in the United States...Statistics are sobering. While overdose deaths related to opiates in Nevada have declined from 517 in 2010 to 382 last year, at least one Nevadan dies every day from an opiate overdose...From 2010 to 2014, hospital inpatient admissions related to opioids jumped to 3,783 from 2,993...Sandoval said he wants the panel to focus on duties and responsibilities of health care licensing boards; coordination among law enforcement; substance abuse treatment; and sale and availability of pharmaceuticals..."We seek answers, not excuses,"...
- Late Change in Insurance Plan Leaves 700 Without Health Care (kolotv.com)
Pam Perondi feels she's been blindsided by her health insurance provider, Prominence Health Plan..."It feels like bait and switch."...She says her open enrollment period was closing in mid-December. At the same time, Prominence was informing the Carson Medical Group, which includes the lion's share of the Carson medical community, it was cutting its compensation to them by a third....That was more than the medical group could absorb...Administrator Michael Lollich says the group held off for a week, hoping for reconsideration. Then on the 28th, they notified their patients they were no longer accepting Prominence insurance...The news came after the deadline for Pam Perondi and 700 others to make their decision...Carson Medical Group says it feels for its former patients...the group had no choice and the late notification left them with no time to work on a solution...Perondi isn't sure what she'll do now..."I'm just angry," she says, "and I feel sorry for all the others this has happened to."
- Gov. Sandoval tells state dental board to ‘fix’ its patient complaint process (reviewjournal.com)
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval told the state dental board to address problems with its patient-complaint-resolution process at a heated meeting...in which dental professionals accused the regulators of corruption, bullying and extortion...“There’s something not right here and it needs to be fixed,” the Republican governor said after hearing complaints and tearful accounts about the alleged problems...The current process...left dentists and other practitioners believing they either had to accept a settlement agreement or risk steeper punishment if found at fault during a final board hearing...Either pay me now or we’ll look into it deeper and you’ll pay me more...
- Nevada is out of the execution business, at least for now (reviewjournal.com)
Dozens of killers are on the state’s death row, but should any of their appeals bottom out, it would be impossible to do away with any of them...One of the two drugs needed to administer an execution by lethal injection in Nevada has expired and the drug manufacturer has refused to provide any further supplies, state officials were told Tuesday...the medication provided by the drug company Pfizer....Without the drug, the state has no way to administer an execution...The department ( Nevada Department of Corrections) is moving forward with a national request for proposals to find the drug or an equivalent...the agency would use the drugs midazolam and hydromorphone to administer a lethal injection...Both of these drugs are manufactured by Pfizer..."Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve," the company said in a statement issued earlier this year. "Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment."
- Governor Sandoval announces prescription drug abuse summit (kolotv.com)
Governor Brian Sandoval and First Lady Kathleen Sandoval have announced they will host a State Summit on Prescription Drug Abuse in June 2016. The summit will provide the opportunity for the First Lady’s Drug Abuse Prevention Task Force and subsequently the Multidisciplinary Prevention Advisory Committee to update the community on existing laws put into place as a result of the 78th Legislative Session and Nevada’s Strategic Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Plan...This Summit will bring together all stakeholders as well as community advocates and leaders in a united effort to eradicate this growing epidemic and create safe and livable communities...The Summit will focus on four priority topics:
- Duties and responsibilities of healthcare licensing boards
- Overview of current coordination and opportunities for expanded collaboration with local, state and federal law enforcement
- Review of existing rehabilitation practices and substance abuse treatments
- Cooperation and oversight for private sector issues, including sale and availability of pharmaceuticals
- Nevada dental, medical groups at odds over who can administer Botox (reviewjournal.com)
A long-running debate in Nevada’s medical community is heating up, with doctors challenging a new regulation that would enable dental hygienists to administer Botox to patients for either medical or cosmetic reasons...The State Board of Dental Examiners...last month approved rules that would extend the privilege to licensed dental hygienists...But the Nevada State Medical Association, which represents the state’s practicing physicians, is pushing back. It says use of the toxin should not be extended to dental hygienists, who can be licensed after as little as two years of study at an accredited college, and that dentists should be restricted to applying it to certain areas of the head...Dentists...have called the dispute a "turf war," arguing that physicians are attempting to protect a lucrative and increasingly common medical procedure.
- Nevada’s Attorney General sues insurer for failing to defend state, pay settlement (reviewjournal.com)
Attorney General Adam Laxalt is suing an insurance company alleging breach of contract and bad faith for failing to defend Nevada and pay its $400,000 settlement with the city of San Francisco over allegations of patient dumping...The lawsuit filed...against The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania...seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, along with costs and attorney’s fees...San Francisco sued Nevada in 2013 following an investigation by the Sacramento Bee into patients at Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas being provided bus tickets. The lawsuit claimed about 500 patients arrived in California and about two dozen were bused to San Francisco, many needing medical treatment and shelter. The city sought reimbursement for their care…Nevada settled the lawsuit in 2015...the action against the insurance company, alleges the carrier failed to investigate San Francisco’s claims against Nevada and invoked "inapplicable coverage exclusions" to escape its duty to defend and indemnify Nevada from San Francisco’s lawsuit...
- Health officials say major Zika outbreak unlikely in Nevada (reviewjournal.com)Zika Virus (cdc.gov)
Health officials say a disease believed to have caused a major increase in birth defects among Brazilian-born babies is unlikely to flourish in Nevada, though travelers could bring it to the state...As of Thursday, 31 cases of Zika virus disease have been confirmed in the United States, but all are related to travel outside of the country, Southern Nevada Health District Disease Investigation and Intervention Specialist Tony Fredrick said. There are no known cases in Nevada...Travel could bring infected people from these regions to the Silver State, said James M. Wilson, director of the Nevada State Infectious Disease Forecast Station at the University of Nevada, Reno...Trapping efforts in Southern Nevada have not shown any sign of the Aedes species of mosquito, which is believed to have been the primary cause of most recent infections...