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After July 31, 2019, Renown Health will no longer accept Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. Anthem issued a termination notice in February of 2019...Both Renown and Anthem have said they were working toward a resolution but now time is up...READ MORE

While there is a worsening doctor shortage across America, the need for physicians is particularly acute in Southern Nevada. The UNLV School of Medicine is working to address this local shortage by accepting only students who are from Nevada or who have strong ties to the area, as we know that medical students who are attached to the city from which they graduate are more likely to stay and practice there...The UNLV School of Medicine is recruiting the brightest local students and embedding them in the community from the very start of their medical education...students are required to fan out in groups of five or six into economically challenged neighborhoods where...they educate residents about how they can get better access to medical care, public transportation and healthy food. And these students will maintain these ties to the community throughout their four years of medical school by volunteering at shelters and soup kitchens. In these venues, students not only get a firsthand look at a community’s needs, they experience what it is like to provide care to those who need it most...READ MORE

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford filed a lawsuit...in Clark County District Court accusing dozens of drug manufacturers and distributors of propagating the state’s deadly opioid epidemic...The 241-page complaint names more than 40 defendants, including prescription drug makers such as Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals, and distributors including CVS, Walgreens and retail giant Walmart...It accuses drug manufacturers of pushing doctors to prescribe the addictive medication while downplaying the side effects. It also alleges that distributors supplied many more opioids than justified for the Nevada market, ignoring data that allowed them to track overprescribing...READ MORE

In a cut-throat, protectionist sort of way, it makes sense that Nevada’s existing medical providers want to handicap new competitors. But that doesn’t mean elected officials should be doing their bidding...Elite Medical Center provides hospital and emergency room services near the Strip. It’s a small facility trying to fill an overlooked niche in the market — tourists. It treats an average of 30 patients a day. It boasts that patients see a doctor within minutes of arrival...Most Las Vegas residents would likely have never heard of it, except its competitors keep attacking the facility. Other hospitals are upset that Elite Medical Center doesn’t accept Medicaid and Medicare as payment methods...But why would hospitals care if a competitor didn’t accept certain payment methods? That would seem like an opportunity to lure those customers...The medical field needs innovation. Nevada won’t get it by stifling providers who dare to do things differently...READ MORE

Saint Mary’s Medical Group will open its new North Valleys Urgent Care Clinic...“Saint Mary’s believes in the importance of providing excellent care throughout the community,” Dr. Bayo Curry-Winchell, Urgent Care Medical Director for Saint Mary’s Medical Group, said in a statement. “As the North Valleys continue to grow in population, providing care close to home is essential.”...READ MORE

• CS: Reporting Theft or Loss
• National Pharmacy Compliance News July 2019
• FDA Changes Opioid Labeling to Give Providers Better Information on Tapering
• DEA Warns of Scam Calls Targeting Pharmacists and Other DEA-Registered Providers
• FDA Officials Outline 2019 Efforts to Improve Quality of Compounded Drugs
• China Agrees to Stricter Fentanyl Production Laws Following Pressure From US Lawmakers
• Two Lots of Transdermal Fentanyl Patches Recalled Due to Product Mislabeling
• FDA Releases Toolkit to Help Promote Safe Opioid Disposal

A Department of Veterans Affairs program launched last week will offer military veterans new options in accessing health care...The Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks Act, or Mission Act, essentially expands on earlier legislation intended to cut down on wait times at VA medical facilities by allowing veterans to see private doctors in some circumstances...“It was a temporary fix at that time to deal with wait times and scheduling issues,” Chuck Ramey, spokesman for the the VA Southern Nevada Healthcare System in North Las Vegas...“The VA has been working with the community to provide community care since day one.”...Under the new program...veterans can work with their VA health care provider or other agency staffers to see if they are eligible to receive care from local non-VA doctors...Dr. Ramu Komanduri, chief of staff at the VA facility in North Las Vegas, said the new act “offers many more opportunities for the veteran to make a choice.”...READ MORE

A year after its opening and a few months after it was targeted in a political debate in the Nevada Legislature, Elite Medical Center...is looking toward 2021...That’s the year that Elite will have to accept Medicare and Medicaid, although CEO Patty Holden, who said it could be much sooner, hopes to work with lawmakers to create different classes of hospitals in Nevada...Less than a mile from Strip landmarks like the Bellagio and Paris Las Vegas, the hospital is working toward accepting Medicare and Medicaid, after state legislators earlier this year passed a law requiring essentially all hospitals in the state to accept the government programs...READ MORE

College of Southern Nevada paramedic students are the first in the state to begin training on portable ultrasound machines that can help diagnose traumatic bleeding long before a patient arrives at an emergency room...Students in uniform practiced with the handheld devices for the first time...The devices, which will help first responders determine how to care for patients and where to send them, can also communicate patient information to emergency room doctors during transport, expediting the arrival process...“If we have a decision to make in the field, one hospital may not have the trauma surgery capabilities that are needed,” said Braiden Green, CSN’S program director of emergency medical services. “This allows us to decrease the amount of times…that a patient is moved, to get the patient to definitive care faster and improve patient outcomes.”...In rural Nevada, an on-the-spot diagnosis could determine whether a helicopter is needed, Green said, one big reason that CSN decided to pursue this technology...READ MORE

Despite significant improvements in the number of insured adults and children, Nevada ranked 48th in the nation for overall health care in a 2019 scorecard released by the Commonwealth Fund...The report scored the Silver State at 50th for access and affordability, 51st for prevention and treatment, 38th for avoidable hospital use and cost and 39th for the healthiness of its residents’ lifestyles. The only category in which the state outperformed the national average was in health care disparities — the gap between the level of care received between lower- and higher-income residents — at 24th...READ MORE