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Attorney General Aaron Ford announced Thursday that Nevada would join a multi-state opiod settlement with drugmakers and distributors...Ford said that the state would receive around $285 million through a pair of settlements...Last year, Ford announced a $45 million settlement against one company involved in the opioid litigation. The lawsuit is being handled on a contingency fee basis for the state by Eglet Prince, the law firm where Ford worked as a private attorney before being elected attorney general in 2018. Ford, however, recused himself from the selection process...Ford in August announced that Nevada would opt out of a $26 billion multi-state settlement...READ MORE

Nevada Department of Corrections Director Charles Daniels testified...that of all the potential complications from death row inmate Zane Floyd’s proposed execution, he is most concerned about the state’s drug supply...“My primary concern, quite frankly, is that all the necessary pharmaceuticals will expire,” Daniels told U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware...State law authorizes Daniels to plan and carry out execution protocols. While he is required to consult with Nevada’s chief medical officer about the drugs the state plans to use, the officials do not have to come to an agreement...Floyd was sentenced to die for fatally shooting four people and gravely wounding another in a Las Vegas grocery store more than two decades ago. He also was convicted of repeatedly raping a woman before the shooting...READ MORE

A Nevada jury has awarded TeamHealth $60 million in punitive damages as part of an ongoing legal spat between the physician staffing firm and health insurance giant UnitedHealthcare... jury ruled late last month that the insurer underpaid emergency physicians at three TeamHealth affiliates in the state and at the time awarded $2.65 million in compensatory damages...Nine additional, similar lawsuits are pending in other states, and TeamHealth is expecting the Nevada results to drive momentum in those other cases...“Today’s ruling that United must pay $60 million in punitive damages sets a critical precedent that large health insurers can’t underpay frontline doctors for lifesaving care,” said TeamHealth President and CEO Leif Murphy in a statement. “We look forward to continuing the fight against United in nine future cases that will be decided on the same set of facts.”...

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Businesses with 100 or more employees will be required to mandate vaccination or weekly testing for their workers under a new rule announced by President Joe Biden...But many Nevada businesses and public institutions have already put their own employee vaccine mandates in place, with more in the works as the federal government finalizes the new rule and fleshes out its finer points. Some have gone further by requiring vaccinations not just for employees but as a condition of entry for members of the public, including at conventions, athletic events and concerts...At the same time, some rural governments have passed resolutions banning vaccine mandates to varying degrees...READ MORE

The first pill authorized in the U.S. for treating COVID-19 at home will initially be offered in Nevada primarily to patients in long-term care and skilled nursing facilities because of scarce supplies...The remainder, less than 10 percent of the state’s initial allotment of Pfizer’s antiviral medication Paxlovid, has been given to University Medical Center in Las Vegas and to Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno, members of the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy said...The drug’s authorization is “hands down, next to the vaccine, the most significant milestone in the pandemic,” said Dr. Shadaba Asad, the medical director of infectious disease at UMC...Supplies of the Pfizer pill currently are extremely limited across the country. Nevada’s initial supplies are enough to treat 480 patients, with allocations expected to grow as production ramps up, pharmacy board executive secretary David Wuest said...READMORE

Nevada health officials have confirmed the state’s second confirmed case of the coronavirus caused by the highly transmissible omicron variant, this time in a rural county...The second case was found in Churchill County in northern Nevada and involved an unvaccinated woman in her mid-40s, according to the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory...READ MORE

...Gov. Steve Sisolak delivered a bouquet of flowers to Las Vegas nurse practitioner Geoconda Hughes...In this manner, the governor launched a slate of events during what he called “Health Care Week in Nevada” aimed at recognizing Nevadans who work in medicine and raising community awareness of their efforts. The events also provide an opportunity, he said, to learn more about the problems facing health care workers and possible solutions to their workplace challenges...READ MORE

State corrections officials told a federal judge last week that they’re quickly running out time before a crucial lethal injection drug proposed for use in the execution of death row inmate Zane Floyd will expire...Nevada Department of Corrections Director Charles Daniels said in federal court that his chief concern with carrying out the execution is that the necessary drugs would expire before the state could proceed with its execution plan.His testimony followed days of hearings last week, during which medical experts called by the state made the case that the state’s proposed drug cocktail, never before used in carrying out a death sentence, would result in a painless death for Floyd...“My understanding is that it would be less painful than other methods,” said Daniel Buffington, a clinical pharmacologist who works at the University of South Florida. “It would reduce the individual's anxiety… It would be quick.”...
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