Category:

• Return of Dispensed Drugs to a Pharmacy

National Pharmacy Compliance News

• DEA Launches New Tool to Help Distributors Make Informed Decisions About Customers
• PTCB Launches Certified Compounded Sterile Preparation Technician Program
• DEA Enables Mid-level Practitioners to Prescribe and Dispense Buprenorphine
• New CDC Training Offers CPE on Antibiotic Stewardship
• Walmart to Provide Free Solution to Dispose of Medications With Schedule II Prescriptions
• ASHP Research and Education Foundation Predicts Trends to Affect Pharmacy in 2018
• USP Encourages Pharmacists to Help Patients Find Quality Dietary Supplements
• New CPE Monitor Subscription Plan Helps Pharmacists Track Compliance Via Mobile App

Nevada State Board of Pharmacy News

• Controlled Substance Prescription DEA Number Requirement

Two national drug lobbying organizations dropped a lawsuit Thursday challenging the constitutionality of Nevada’s first-in-the-nation insulin pricing transparency law a little less than a month after the state approved regulations allowing drug companies to protect certain information they turn over to the state from public disclosure...Attorneys representing two associations and the state agreed in a joint court filing that the newly adopted regulations resolve drug companies’ concerns that the new law would require manufacturers of diabetes drugs to disclose trade secret-protected information in conflict with federal law and in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The decision to abandon a legal fight comes nine months after the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization challenged the law in U.S. District Court.

Two in five Nevada physicians lobbied by pharmaceutical sales representatives in the last three months of 2017 received monetary compensation, according to a report released earlier this month by the Department of Health and Human Services...The department found that 42 percent of doctors, or 396 physicians, identified in reports made to the state received some amount of monetary compensation from pharmaceutical reps between October and December, while 58 percent only received samples. But the report is also telling in what it is unable to say, with only about half of the states’ 2,572 active pharmaceutical reps detailing their doctor lobbying activities and only 13 percent of submitted reports containing enough information to tie the data back to licensed Nevada physicians...Of the small percentage of data it was able to collect and analyze, the state identified a total of 954 doctors that either received direct compensation, samples or both from pharmaceutical sales representatives, with 396 of them receiving direct compensation. (Nevada had a little under 6,000 active physicians as of March 2018.)...The report is the first formal product released as a result of Nevada’s new drug pricing transparency law. The state will be required to compile another report after it receives certain data related to the costs and profits associated with manufacturing and selling so-called essential diabetes drugs from drug manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers, who are the middlemen in the drug pricing process...The drug lobby is continuing to challenge the constitutionality of those reporting requirements in U.S. District Court after final regulations were approved last month.

If you need to get rid of old or expired medication, there are now 11 local Walgreens where you can get the chore done...The company opened its 1,000th medication disposal kiosk in the nation...4905 W. Tropicana Ave. in Las Vegas. The steel-box kiosks in Walgreens pharmacies are open during store hours for people to drop off unused pills for free, ensuring that the active ingredients don’t get into Nevada’s landfills or sewage systems...Gov. Brian Sandoval, who was on hand for the kiosk unveiling, said the disposal boxes also will help curb Nevada’s opioid crisis by keeping the drug out of the wrong hands...There are 12 kiosks located in Nevada: one in Henderson, nine in Las Vegas, one in North Las Vegas and one in Reno...Richard Ashworth, Walgreens president of operations, said the kiosks across the U.S. have already collected more than 270 tons of medications since the program began in 2016. The company plans to open 500 more kiosks...

Nevada plans to execute death row inmate Scott Dozier next week using the powerful painkiller fentanyl as well the sedative midazolam — a drug that critics have blamed for executions in other states in which prisoners were seen struggling for breath before they died...The Nevada Department of Corrections offered up formal notice...that it would be putting Dozier to death next Wednesday at 8 p.m. at Ely State Prison. They also released the new lethal injection drug protocol, which comes as the state’s supply of a drug formerly in the combination — diazepam — expired...Attorneys for Dozier didn’t immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday about whether they would take any steps to challenge the protocol, or whether Dozier approves of the method...

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.”...

The Reno VA Hospital's nursing facility is under the microscope..."We have work to do, we know that and we are ready and willing to do it," said Glenna Smith, Hospital’s Public Affairs Officer...the nursing home received a one-star rating for quality between the months of July and September 2017. But overall, it received two stars...Smith explains the low rating can be attributed to a big change. That change took place a few years ago to better position with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services rating system, which is used for private sector nursing homes...But Smith says the VA hospital can't pick and choose who to care for, like its counterparts in the private sector. So that leads to admitting patients who are severely ill, which impacts the ratings...The most recent rating between January and March 2018 saw an increase. The overall rating went to three stars with quality going to two...Smith says paying attention to how to treat pain and also increasing veteran patients' mobility are two biggest factors to improving the ratings...

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...

More than half of Nevada occupational licensing boards aren’t following a 2010 directive to keep their salaries in line with state employees, and another 12 percent are paying salaries above caps set in state law...A report presented...to members of the state’s executive audit committee — composed of the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and controller — detailed various oversight issues with the state’s nearly three dozen occupational licensing boards on everything from executive compensation to inconsistencies in how boards manage their finances...The audit — and the somewhat testy responses from several licensing boards — underlined a consistent pressure between the semi-autonomous regulatory bodies and the governor’s office, which is nominally in charge of regulating them...The audit reported that at least four of the boards — Pharmacy, Medical, Contractors and Accountancy — paid out salaries above the limit set in state law, which caps most salaries for state employees at 95 percent of the governor’s annual $149,753 salary...The boards presented a variety of reasons for paying their executive directors above the limit set in law. The State Board of Pharmacy wrote in a response to the audit that the salary figure included contributions to the state’s retirement fund and pointed to conflicting language in state law that gave the board the ability to determine the executive director’s salary...The audit suggested that boards were overpaying executive directors between $28,000 and $59,000 on average compared to similar positions for state employees...

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...