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When former Clark County School District school psychologist Diana Goodsell was injured by an alleged drunken driver in 2015, she required a cervical spinal fusion surgery...just before the operation...she was told it would cost her $6,800 out of pocket...that was part of the agreement with the Teachers Health Trust...Now Goodsell and other current and former district employees have filied (filed) a class action lawsuit against the Teachers Health Trust, which provides health insurance for thousands of Clark County School District employees and their dependents. The lawsuit...alleges breach of contract, consumer fraud and other actions that the plaintiffs say have forced them to pay more for health care and receive less...The lawsuit names the trust, seven of its trustees and WellHealth Quality Care...as defendants. It claims that WellHealth violated its contract by refusing to pay claims, charging double the $10 co-pay for doctor visits and leaving teachers with higher yearly out-of-pocket expenses than the specified cap of approximately $6,800...The School Board said it has received numerous complaints about the trust’s health care coverage...

Southern Nevada and the world watched as Las Vegas hospitals and doctors operated and cared for the wounded on Oct. 1 and subsequent days, and they’re getting high marks for their performance for handling the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history...While 58 were killed — nearly all succumbed to their wounds at the scene of a country music concert on the Strip — more than 500 people were injured, and most passed through nine of Las Vegas’ 14 hospitals. More than 200 went to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, and more than 100 went to University Medical Center — the city’s two main trauma centers for handling emergency cases...The hospitals and the medical community are evaluating their performance for a wider report about lessons learned. That information will be disseminated across the country as doctors, nurses and administrators appear at panels in the coming months to share with professionals in their fields...Once hospitals complete their internal review, they will be shared with one another how they responded and what the challenges were...They will look at what they did well and how they would do something differently in the future...Las Vegas will share with the rest of the world the “best practices” it learned from the mass shooting, just like it did after the MGM Grand fire...

Nevada’s health exchange is looking to once again run its own enrollment site, a move off the healthcare.gov platform that could save the state millions of dollars...The Silver State Health Exchange is planning to issue a request for information in December and will likely issue a request for proposal in March, said Heather Korbulic, the agency’s executive director. She said the healthcare.gov platform limits the exchange’s access to information and how much time customers can spend shopping for plans...“We’ll just take the same business processes that we use with healthcare.gov right now and remove healthcare.gov and put in private technology,” she said. “So we limit any kind of disruption.”...She said the exchange can show that it has a plan that will comply with regulations while still going to a private option. If the new platform is in place by 2020, the exchange would save $6 million...

A federal judge...denied a request by pharmaceutical companies to immediately block a Nevada law requiring them to detail diabetes drug prices and disclose manufacturing costs and research investments come July...The reason, he said: July is more than nine months away...“I don’t see immediate and irreparable harm here,” U.S. District Judge James Mahan said after hearing arguments for and against the request in Las Vegas. Mahan said he might reconsider if the request were made in March or April, but he facetiously added, “My crystal ball is broken.”...At Tuesday’s hearing, Robert Weiner, who represented the pharmaceutical groups, argued that acts as a penalty for companies wanting to raise prices after Nov. 1 and before the July disclosure date...“This is a competitive disadvantage, and it chills us now,” Weiner said...Arguing against the injunction, Las Vegas Chief Deputy Attorney General Linda Anderson said the law is intended to protect diabetes patients in Nevada.

Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center broke ground Friday on a new five-story addition on its campus in Las Vegas...The two-year, $130 million project was prompted by population growth in Clark County and an influx of patients resulting from the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. When completed, the 253,000-square-foot addition to an existing building will include 72 surgery and intensive care patient beds, a new pediatric cardiovascular unit and imaging and laboratory space...It also will add 10 children’s emergency beds and a pharmacy...

Nevada has requested an extra $11.3 million in federal funding to continue the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program while Congress decides if it will renew funding for the decades-old program...If the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approves the state’s request, it will keep the Nevada Check Up program running through February, according to Chrystal Main, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services...Without it, the state will run out of funding by the end of the year, and families will need to find health coverage elsewhere...Congress missed its Sept. 30 deadline to reauthorize the program, which covers more than 27,500 Nevada children whose low-income families make too much to qualify for Medicaid. The state’s Division of Health Care Financing and Policy was working to find alternate funding sources for the program, deputy administrator Cody Phinney said at the time...The program costs $43 million annually, covered almost entirely by federal funding.

Five months after an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease was reported at the Rio, the number of confirmed cases of the pneumonia-like bacterial illness among guests has risen to seven, with 29 more cases suspected, the Southern Nevada Health District said...Meanwhile, cleaning and testing of the hotel’s water system is continuing to ensure the disease has been eradicated...“In a situation like this, part of the process of these investigations on an environmental aspect is continued testing and monitoring,” said Robert Cole, the health district’s senior environmental health specialist...Often the process, which includes precautionary disinfection of water systems, will continue for up to a year, Cole said...In addition to the Legionnaires’ outbreak, an October report from the health district said there were 56 suspected cases of influenza-like Pontiac fever, a milder illness caused by the same bacteria, at the hotel, for a total of 92 confirmed or suspected cases related to the outbreak...

Nevada health officials on Tuesday said a bill aimed at curtailing opioid overprescription will keep decision-making in the hands of physicians, not lawmakers...The provisions of Assembly Bill 474, which the Legislature passed into law this year and takes effect on New Year’s Day, were explained to about 200 physicians Tuesday evening at a forum at Las Vegas City Hall...Daniel Burkhead, a physician at the Innovative Pain Care Center in Las Vegas, said the law asks doctors to exercise caution...The law mandates that doctors conduct mental health evaluations before issuing first-time opioid prescriptions, which will be limited to 14 days. The law also mandates that doctors register with the state’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program...“(Lawmakers) did not want to take power out of the hands of physicians,” Burkhead said. “The law wants you to think, before writing that prescription, if this patient provides a high risk of that medication being diverted or abused or misused.”

Trauma surgeons at University Medical Center are spearheading an awareness campaign to train the public on how they can stop someone from bleeding to death if they get shot or stabbed...Called “Stop the Bleed,” it’s part of a national campaign launched by the White House in October 2015. The goal is for people to get trained to help in a bleeding emergency before EMTs arrive at the scene...Doctors credit concertgoers for saving many lives during the Oct. 1 mass shooting by applying pressure on wounds before the victims could get treatment...UMC is offering the program for businesses who want hospital staff to train their employees at their site, along with schools, athletic teams and other groups. There are also sessions where the public can come to UMC for training, he said...“This is for every single person to obtain this training, to the average soccer mom to any construction zone and anybody we already teach CPR,” Fraser (Dr. Douglas Fraser, UMC trauma surgeon) said. “This is a movement, so we’re not relying on 911 in mass incidents. Time is of the essence, and they may not have time to get there. Innocent bystanders can become health care providers in order to stop the bleed right in front of you.”...Kuhls (Dr. Deborah Kuhls, UMC trauma surgeon) said she and others will lobby the Nevada Legislature in the 2019 session to require companies, governments and others to place wall-mounted Stop the Bleed compression kits with special gauze and tourniquets wherever heart defibrillators are placed. Several states have proposed the kits in public facilities, she said.

The maternal-HIV program at UNLV that was suspended by the university six weeks ago without notice is now without a director...The university...placed Dr. Echezona Ezeanolue, the program’s director, and Dina Patel, a pediatric nurse practitioner, on administrative leave. They were escorted off the campus...Shawn Gerstenberger, dean of the school of community health sciences, asked the university to prosecute Ezeanolue and Patel for various “unsubstantiated claims of wrongdoing.”...the grant-funded program, which provides outpatient HIV primary care services to low-income, vulnerable and medically underserved women, infants, children and youth, was suspended by the university six weeks ago...President Len Jessup said previously that there were irregularities with the way the grant is being administered. Gerstenberger said an administrative audit is underway.