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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.

Nevada Medicaid will decide next month whether to impose additional requirements for patients to undergo therapy on an ongoing basis, a move the state says will increase accountability and ensure people are getting the care they actually need...mental health providers across the state are decrying as yet another barrier to access to mental health care for a vulnerable population...The Division of Health Care Financing and Policy...to decide whether to require psychologists, therapists and other mental health professionals to provide written documentation demonstrating medical necessity and receive prior approval to continue providing talk therapy or neurotherapy…State officials describe the policy as an effort to be both fiscally and socially responsible, ensuring that providers are only getting paid for services that are actually necessary and that patients are receiving the right treatment for their condition...opponents...argue that it will damage an already-thin safety net for patients by imposing additional administrative burdens on providers…

While most states are still grappling with the Trump administration’s decision earlier this month to slash funding for a program that helps people purchase health insurance on the exchange, Nevada is gearing up for open enrollment later this year by expanding the enrollment assistance it offers to consumers...Nevada’s health insurance exchange announced earlier this month that it would be nearly doubling the number of brokers, navigators and in-person assister organizations available to help walk people through the process of signing up for health insurance this year, calling the assistance program a “critical component” in an oftentimes “intimidating and complicated process.” That announcement stood in stark contrast to a decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services a little more than a week later to scale back the navigator program for the fully federally facilitated marketplaces in 34 other states, saying that “the need for federally funded Navigators has diminished.”

A Nevada judge effectively put the execution of a two-time killer on hold...after a pharmaceutical company objected to the use of one of its drugs to put someone to death...Clark County District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez disallowed the use of the drug in a ruling that came down less than nine hours before Scott Raymond Dozier, 47, was to be executed with a three-chemical injection never before tried in the U.S...The Nevada Supreme Court could hear an appeal Wednesday afternoon of the judge's ruling to halt the use of a drug in the execution of a twice-convicted killer...Supreme Court spokesman Michael Sommermeyer says that some of the seven justices are in Chicago for a Nevada State Bar Association meeting, but that the court could meet by teleconference...The state of Nevada had not yet appealed by midday. The state said it would explore whether it could appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court...

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.

Alvogen has won a court order preventing the Nevada Department of Corrections from using its sedative drug product, midazolam, in an execution...A temporary restraining order has blocked the Nevada Department of Corrections from using Alvogen’s midazolam in an execution due to take place yesterday (7/11). The drug was intended to be used as a sedative, prior to delivery of the lethal injections...Alvogen had claimed the Department fraudulently obtained the drug. “Alvogen does not accept direct orders from prison systems or departments of correction,”...“Alvogen also works with its distributors and wholesalers to restrict any sale, either directly or indirectly, of our midazolam product to any prison system or department of corrections,”...Alvogen “does not condone the use of any of its drug products, including midazolam, for use in state sponsored executions,”...

The report, released by the school’s Office of Statewide Initiatives last week, found that the state has added 1,789 physicians over the last decade, a 31.7 percent increase, but because of population growth, the number of physicians per 100,000 Nevadans only grew by about 10 percent. And, when accounting for roughly 50 percent growth in the number of licensed but inactive physicians — meaning those who are retired, semi-retired, temporarily not in practice or otherwise not active — there was actually only a 1.7 percent increase in active physicians over the last decade...“treading water effect”...“There’s so much demand for health care in general so it’s part of a broader workforce problem in that they’re struggling with nurses now, struggling in mental and behavioral health,”...“You throw on top of that population growth, it makes it very difficult.”

...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

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.