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Nevada’s medical community is largely in agreement with Gov. Brian Sandoval’s budgetary priorities to improve health care in the state over the next two years...Now comes the hard part: Finding funds to adequately address those issues during the legislative session...without creating new gaps in the state’s strained health care system...Sandoval and medical organizations have reached a general consensus on three main issues:

• ...the state’s continuing opioid abuse problem…Sandoval said he’ll introduce the Controlled Substance Abuse Prevention Act this year to provide “more training and reporting and heightened protocols for medical professionals” for prescribing pain-relieving but addictive opioids.
• ...funding for the UNLV School of Medicine…The proposed budget includes an additional $10 million in graduate medical education funding to increase medical residency and fellowship programs in the Silver State…
• ...an increase in Medicaid reimbursement to physicians...Sandoval’s proposed budget for the next biennium includes $8.6 million in increased reimbursement for specific groups of health care providers, including those in assisted living facilities, adult day cares and pediatric surgical services. When matched with federal dollars, that will amount to a spending increase of nearly $34 million...

A fellowship program being developed at Touro University Nevada aims to put a dent in the doctor shortage locally while also providing more skillful care to Southern Nevada’s senior population...The school’s geriatrics fellowship program will fill a critical gap as the only such program in Southern Nevada when it launches in July, said Dr. John J. Dougherty, dean of Touro’s College of Osteopathic Medicine...The one-year-program, which is recruiting two fellows this year but will grow to four positions in 2018, was approved about two years ago through a national governing medical board... funding was a portion of the $10 million in graduate medical education funding set aside in Gov. Brian Sandoval’s budget for “attracting, educating and retaining” qualified new doctors in Nevada...Statistics suggest that people who complete their graduate medical education in Nevada are more likely to stay and practice here, which is one of the key reasons for the push to increase local residencies and fellowships...A fellowship program being developed at Touro University Nevada aims to put a dent in the doctor shortage locally while also providing more skillful care to Southern Nevada’s senior population...

The mental health system in Nevada has long been a lightning rod for criticism, with the Silver State consistently ranking at or near the bottom of most national rankings...But state legislators and health officials say a trio of bills now being drafted would make some small improvements by streamlining licensing of mental health professionals, updating the state’s definition of “mental illness” and making it easier to share information on individuals who have been deemed mentally ill with law enforcement...(Assemblyman James Oscarson)...proposed transferring “responsibility for regulating certain mental health-related professions to the State Board of Health...Another bill...would allow the state criminal record repository to more easily share information with local law enforcement officers. The idea is to help them identify an individual who has been “adjudicated as mentally ill or has been committed to any mental health facility” and is therefore barred from possessing firearms...A third proposal...aims to update the definition of “mental illness” in Nevada statutes...The bill would bring the state into line with the definitions in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders….

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A Reno doctor arrested on allegations he participated in an opioid drug ring is the subject of a newly filed complaint by a Nevada medical board alleging 74 violations of the state’s Medical Practice Act...family physician Robert Rand, who was arrested in San Francisco in April, inappropriately treated patients by committing malpractice, violating opioid prescribing standards and engaging in unprofessional conduct, among other accusations...Rand, whose medical license remains active, is currently behind bars, according to the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office...

...Dr. Henri Wetselaar...his medical assistant (David Litwin) and a pharmacist (Jason Smith)...are accused of funneling large quantities of pills onto the streets of Las Vegas through an illegal prescription drug ring...the trial...has provided a window into the scope of the federal government’s crackdown on prescription drug abuse in Southern Nevada...One of the government’s star witnesses is a drug dealer who testified this week about an arrangement she had with Wetselaar and Litwin, who saw clients out of her home twice a week. Carolyn Allen said she would refer clients to Wetselaar, instruct them to complain about back pain, and provide them with the cash to pay for the prescription. Clients would return to her with the prescriptions...she would take the prescriptions to Lam’s Pharmacy, where Smith was the manager. She said Lam’s Pharmacy maintained an entire book dedicated only to her clients. Allen said her clients were prescribed — among other drugs — oxycodone, hydrocodone, Soma and Xanax.

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…

University Medical Center officials plan to open a new urgent care facility in Enterprise, which could become the hospital’s busiest clinic...Beginning in July, UMC will lease a 6,067-square-foot suite in the Blue Diamond Ranch Shopping Center, located at the intersection of Blue Diamond Road and Decatur Boulevard. The clinic will open the same month...“We found this specific community to be under resourced for health care and heard from the community that they would like a UMC Quick Care in their neighborhood,” UMC CEO Mason VanHouweling wrote…The new facility will offer walk-in treatment, X-ray imaging and a handful of lab tests including rapid strep tests, rapid pregnancy tests and urine dipstick analysis. Two doctors will work there when it opens...

University, health and city officials gathered… at Las Vegas City Hall offered an in-depth review of the UNLV School of Medicine’s progress in establishing the...medical school…city officials believe the school is integral to...develop a...medical district in the central valley...The district, established in 1997 to create an area of concentrated medical activity...covers 684 acres with a core 214-acre area between Charleston Boulevard and Alta Drive, from Rancho Drive to Martin Luther King Boulevard...They have invested more than $36 million in infrastructure in four years and expect to pump in another $97 million in 2018 and beyond...The investment…is expected to pay off...By 2030, the medical school is projected to have an economic impact of $1.2 billion...the growth...provides opportunities for collaboration with local physicians and allows the homegrown medical community to grow alongside the needs of the area...

A Henderson man has pleaded guilty to fraudulently distributing more than $100 million worth of prescription drugs that came from the black market...Randy Crowell, 56, entered the plea last week in federal court...on one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. The case stretches from Utah, where Crowell’s wholesale distribution company was based, to street corners of Manhattan and the Bronx, where people sold their prescriptions to low-level collectors for $40 a bottle or more...Crowell gained about $16 million in profits…Crowell ran the scheme...as the operator and owner of a licensed wholesale distributor of prescription medications...During that time, he and co-conspirators funneled prescription medications from the black market to pharmacies nationwide...He exposed people with life-threatening illnesses to medicines they had no idea had been diverted from the normal stream of commerce, all the while defrauding health care companies and government benefit programs…