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A judge ruled...that the Department of Corrections must reveal the name of the attending physician in the planned execution of Scott Dozier, but the name may be revealed only to the attorneys who represent the makers of drugs in the state’s lethal injection protocol...Assistant Solicitor General Jordan Smith, who represents the prison system, told District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez that publicly revealing the name could lead to death threats...Todd Bice, an attorney for Alvogen Inc., which makes the sedative midazolam, said the company’s lawyers wanted to ensure that the doctor who is expected to oversee capital punishment is a licensed physician...Gonzalez is expected to hear further arguments...in the fight over the use of the three drugs in Nevada’s lethal injection cocktail.

Three chambers of commerce in Southern Nevada are banding together to take advantage of a new Trump administration rule that makes it easier for small businesses to collectively purchase health insurance...The Henderson Chamber of Commerce, Latin Chamber of Commerce and Boulder City Chamber of Commerce have partnered under the banner of the Clark County Health Plan Association to offer so-called association health plans to their members...The Department of Labor released a rule in June that loosened the rules on association health plans, exempting them from providing the essential health benefits required under the Affordable Care Act, eliminating restrictions based on geography and allowing companies in different industries in the same region to provide coverage together.

Las Vegas ranks near the bottom in many health care categories, but this time it’s a good thing...The prescription drug-tracking website GoodRx rated Las Vegas one of the least-expensive metropolitan areas in the country for out-of-pocket prescription drugs in a new report...The reason for the city’s No. 9 ranking is unclear...Las Vegas’ prices were 9.4 percent below the national average. Columbus, Ohio, had the lowest prices, with drugs costing 21.7 percent below the national figure on average...In some cities, higher cost of living corresponded to higher prices, but not so in Las Vegas, where the Council for Community and Economic Research reports the cost of living to be 2.5 percent above the national average...Leiana Oswald, associate professor of pharmacy practice at Roseman University of Health Sciences in Henderson, said tools like GoodRx can be useful for consumers and pharmacists. She said customers should also get in the habit of asking for coupons at the pharmacy counter, checking for discounts through the drug manufacturer and comparing a drug’s cash price to the cost after insurance...“I think that the best thing that patients can do is to be that squeaky wheel, to ask those questions,” she said.

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...

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.

The Nevada Supreme Court has agreed to quickly take up the question of whether a drug company can block the use of its product in an inmate's execution...Prison officials won expedited review Friday, just minutes after filing documents saying the state faces the expiration of one of three drugs it wants to use...State Attorney General Adam Laxalt's office says it needs a high court ruling by Oct. 19...That would put twice-convicted killer Scott Raymond Dozier's twice-postponed lethal injection on track for mid-November...Dozier says he wants to die, but judges have for different reasons blocked the never-tried combination of drugs the state drew up after struggling to find lethal injection supplies...Pharmaceutical firm Alvogen says Nevada improperly obtained its sedative midazolam to use in Dozier's execution.

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...

Nevada Medicaid approved a requirement that therapists receive prior approval before providing more than five therapy sessions to a patient...The new policy, which takes effect on Oct. 1, will require psychologists, therapists and other mental health providers to submit written documentation to the state’s third-party vendor demonstrating the medical necessity of treatment and receive prior approval to continue providing both talk therapy and neurotherapy services after five sessions with a patient. The final policy is a scaled back version of earlier proposals from Medicaid to require prior authorization before the first session or after three sessions, both which received significant pushback from the mental health community over the last few weeks...The policy will only apply to patients enrolled in Medicaid’s fee-for-service program, in which Nevada Medicaid reimburses individual providers for services rendered, and not those who are covered under Medicaid managed care, where the state pays an insurance company a flat fee to provide health services to a patient. About one in four of the 650,000 Nevadans on Medicaid are enrolled in the fee-for-service-program.

...the Governor’s Opioid State Action Accountability Task Force met in the Capitol building in Carson City, with the conference being teleconferenced to Las Vegas...The meeting provided status reports on the four tracks - prescriber education and guidelines, treatment options and third-party payers, data collection and intelligence sharing, and criminal justice investigations that were developed during the two-day Governor’s Prescription Drug Abuse Summit in 2016...meeting was the third time the opioid state action accountability task force came together, and opioid use has been steadily going down in Nevada since it peaked in 2011

The Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce would like to get back into the health insurance business...Such a move became more likely...when the Trump administration announced a rule that would let small businesses or associated groups band together to purchase what are known as association health plans. The U.S. Department of Labor said the move will enable groups that share a commonality — such as an industry or geographic location — to obtain more affordable coverage...the chamber, which represents about 3,000 local businesses, released a statement Tuesday saying it would like to re-establish an association health plan for its members, something it offered for 30 years before the ACA was enacted...CEO Mary Beth Sewald said of the plan that was offered through Health Plan of Nevada and covered around 20,000 people. “We were able to get a robust health plan package at an affordable cost.”...Sewald said the Metro Chamber of Commerce members are eager for coverage...“I think this is going to have an extraordinary impact.”...