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A former Lincoln County commissioner was sentenced Friday to one-to-four years in prison for defrauding insurance companies...Adam Katschke...previously pleaded guilty to felony insurance and Medicaid fraud in the case...Katschke, the head pharmacist and owner of Meadow Valley Pharmacy in Caliente, defrauded insurance companies...by billing for large amounts of pharmaceutical prescriptions that were rarely provided as billed to the patients or prescribed by a physician...The sentencing...ordered Katschke to pay $1.5 million in restitution...The defendant stole a million and a half dollars from taxpayers through Medicaid, a program designed to provide care for those in need, not line the pockets of fraudsters…

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...

Most of Nevada’s hospitals are struggling to make the grade when it comes to patient safety, according to a new report by a national health-care watchdog that placed the state near the bottom of its rankings...The hospital safety grades report, compiled twice annually by nonprofit The Leapfrog Group, ranked Nevada 43rd out of 49 states and Washington, D.C., in terms of the percentage of hospitals earning A grades under its 30-component ranking system...three of Nevada’s 20 ranked hospitals received A’s for patient safety — all of them in Northern Nevada. Four received B’s, and 13 received C’s. No Nevada hospitals received a D or F...In Southern Nevada, three hospitals received B’s and 10 were awarded C’s. The results, released late Sunday, were an improvement for Nevada from Leapfrog’s last report this spring, when only one of 19 ranked hospitals — Renown South Meadows Medical Center in Reno — earned an A and Nevada ranked 46th overall...

A North Las Vegas doctor was arrested...in connection with a lewdness incident involving a patient...detectives arrested Jorge Burgos, 50, at his office in the 1800 block of East Lake Mead Boulevard on multiple counts of open and gross lewdness...Allegations were made that on multiple occasions, the doctor inappropriately touched a patient...Police said the investigation is ongoing, and they are seeking other possible victims...Burgos, an internal medicine physician, has no record of disciplinary actions by the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners.

New Year’s Day might be the time for looking ahead, but a headache from the night before can make that hard to do...Drip Doctors is hoping to help New Year’s revelers on the Las Vegas Strip boost their spirits and welcome 2017 in good health by running its mobile IV vitamin therapy unit on Sunday...The van, which will roam the Strip and travel to any off-Strip appointments, will provide intravenous nutrients to consumers suffering from issues such as hangovers and nausea...The business, which advertises its services as a quick way to improve overall energy, immunity and recovery from ailments including a headache or cold, has plans for two brick-and-mortar valley locations, one on Dean Martin Drive near the Rio and another at The District at Green Valley Ranch. Both are expected to open by March…IV vitamin therapy isn’t without controversy...Many facilities that offer such treatments are considered medical spas, which can have little to no direct state oversight in Nevada if they do not perform medical treatments...Critics of the therapy also say it’s unnecessary for most healthy people, overly expensive and a potential source of infection if done too often...

A prominent organization of defense lawyers in Las Vegas this week formed a committee to explore ways of challenging local law enforcement’s methods for gaining drug convictions...The committee, set up by the Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice, will look at the use of what are known as chemical field tests, inexpensive kits used by police and prosecutors to make drug arrests and gain guilty pleas. Officers typically drop suspicious materials into a chemical pouch and look for telltale shifts in color ostensibly meant to indicate the possible presence of illegal drugs. The tests are often the only evidence used to win convictions...The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department crime lab had submitted a formal report detailing the shortcomings of the tests to federal authorities in 2014, and yet to this day the lab still endorses the use of the tests in criminal prosecutions...

Experts from across the valley have taken a hard look at both the city and state’s mental health care situation, and most agreed that, in order to fix things, it will take time, new professionals and lots of money...Nevada has the fewest clinicians of any state — that’s providers who can sit with you and know what to do. In Nevada, only one in three adults that has mental illness will be able to get help. Only one in two children who have severe mental illness can get any help. There’s not enough of us to go around....the shortage of professionals is the root of many of the problems...part of that is infighting between various designations of health care professionals, which ultimately leads to state licensing complications...We don’t have enough professionals, and when professionals try to move here from out of state, we don’t certify them so they can get to work...positive sign that the Nevada Legislature is discussing collapsing all of the licensing boards — for anything to do with behavioral health — into one entity...our system is so poor that most professionals are celebrating this. We believe it will streamline the system, provide resources and bring professionals into the field...

Schedulers for VA mental health services in the Las Vegas area altered wait time data in 2013, months before a national scandal erupted over similar practices at a VA hospital in Arizona, according to a long-delayed report by the agency’s inspector general...A report summary by the Veterans Administration’s Office of the Inspector General, published this week, did not conclude that the practices were a deliberate attempt to fool a tracking system of wait times...But it noted that “several of the (medical support assistants) interviewed indicated that they were directed by supervisors to manipulate scheduling data.”…In response to the report, the VA Southern Nevada Healthcare System...disputed the allegation that the wait times were deliberately manipulated to fool the tracking system, saying the Inspector General’s Office found no hard evidence to support the claims...Rep. Dina Titus...released a statement...calling the allegations in the initial complaint troubling and requesting a briefing on steps taken to ensure the problems have been resolved...“I have been assured for years that this was not happening in our state,” Titus said...“Such behavior is shameful and unacceptable.”

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.

Children in the Las Vegas Valley who have sickle cell disease soon will be able to visit a one-stop hub for medical care and social services to help them cope with the painful, sometimes debilitating blood disorder...The new Sickle Cell Treatment Center will open at the Children’s Specialty Center of Nevada, 3121 S. Maryland Parkway, by the end of October, according to Dr. Nik Abdul Rashid, director of the sickle cell center...The center will provide patients with access to a multidisciplinary team, including doctors, a social worker and a clinical research associate, who can help with everything from psychological assessments to communicating with a child’s school about the impact of the disease, Rashid said...the new center will help ensure kids with sickle cell disease receive adequate care while also giving parents the information and resources they need to be the best caregivers they can be...