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A college student who argues he’s immune from COVID-19 because he was previously infected has lost his bid for an emergency court order that would have allowed him to register for classes while he presses his federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of UNR's mandatory vaccination policy...A U.S district judge from California...said in denying the temporary restraining order sought by 18-year-old Jacob Gold that he’s failed to establish a fundamental constitutional right to refuse vaccination...Gold claims that because he recovered from COVID-19, he has immunity superior to students who’ve been vaccinated and it is statistically impossible for a shot to benefit him...READMORE

A Nevada jury has awarded TeamHealth $60 million in punitive damages as part of an ongoing legal spat between the physician staffing firm and health insurance giant UnitedHealthcare... jury ruled late last month that the insurer underpaid emergency physicians at three TeamHealth affiliates in the state and at the time awarded $2.65 million in compensatory damages...Nine additional, similar lawsuits are pending in other states, and TeamHealth is expecting the Nevada results to drive momentum in those other cases...“Today’s ruling that United must pay $60 million in punitive damages sets a critical precedent that large health insurers can’t underpay frontline doctors for lifesaving care,” said TeamHealth President and CEO Leif Murphy in a statement. “We look forward to continuing the fight against United in nine future cases that will be decided on the same set of facts.”...

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A new ranking of the 10 most cost-efficient hospitals in the U.S. reveals that if all hospitals matched their performance, $8 billion could be saved in Medicare dollars...The ranking, conducted by healthcare think tank Lown Institute , was based on Medicare data from 2016 through 2018 on more than 3,000 hospitals focusing on what they billed and how many patients died. For the analysis, it adjusted both mortality rates and cost based on patient risk...Here are the 10 most cost-efficient hospitals in the U.S., according to the Lown Institute:

Pinnacle Hospital (Crown Point, Indiana)

Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center (Reno, Nevada)

Mercy Medical Center Dubuque (Dubuque, Iowa)

Encino Hospital Medical Center (Encino, California)

Park Ridge Health (Hendersonville, North Carolina)

Oroville Hospital (Oroville, California)

Saint Michael’s Medical Center (Newark, New Jersey)

UnityPoint Health – Meriter (Madison, Wisconsin)

East Liverpool City Hospital (East Liverpool, Ohio)

Maple Grove Hospital (Maple Grove, Minnesota)

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Businesses with 100 or more employees will be required to mandate vaccination or weekly testing for their workers under a new rule announced by President Joe Biden...But many Nevada businesses and public institutions have already put their own employee vaccine mandates in place, with more in the works as the federal government finalizes the new rule and fleshes out its finer points. Some have gone further by requiring vaccinations not just for employees but as a condition of entry for members of the public, including at conventions, athletic events and concerts...At the same time, some rural governments have passed resolutions banning vaccine mandates to varying degrees...READ MORE

Nevada has become the first state to implement a health care premium surcharge on some 5,000 state employees not vaccinated against COVID-19 starting in July 2022...The Nevada Public Employees’ Benefits Program, which manages the health program for 43,000 members and 27,000 dependents across the state, approved a policy...to charge state employees $55 a month plus $175 a month for any unvaccinated dependents over the age of 18 unless they provide a legitimate health or religious exemption by the end of the open enrollment period, which will be assessed July 2022...The policy will help cover the costs of COVID-19 testing and hospitalizations associated with unvaccinated members, Laura Rich, executive officer of the Nevada Public Employees’ Benefits Program (PEBP), said...READ MORE

...Gov. Steve Sisolak delivered a bouquet of flowers to Las Vegas nurse practitioner Geoconda Hughes...In this manner, the governor launched a slate of events during what he called “Health Care Week in Nevada” aimed at recognizing Nevadans who work in medicine and raising community awareness of their efforts. The events also provide an opportunity, he said, to learn more about the problems facing health care workers and possible solutions to their workplace challenges...READ MORE

A state attorney asked a federal judge Friday for a quick hearing and ruling about the constitutionality of Nevada’s execution procedure, saying a drug that officials want to use for condemned killer Zane Floyd’s lethal injection will expire in late February...“We need to continue to expedite this case,” Chief Deputy Nevada Attorney General Randall Gilmer told the judge, who plans at least three days of hearings this month and possibly more next month amid challenges by Floyd’s attorneys of the method, the personnel and the drugs that would be used to kill him...Floyd, a convicted mass killer, is fighting on several fronts to avoid becoming the first Nevada inmate put to death in 15 years...READ MORE

Kris Engelstad McGarry has made no secret of her difficult relationship with the Nevada System of Higher Education’s Board of Regents...“It’s probably the only time you’ll hear me say this, but I have the regents to thank for it,” McGarry, trustee of the Engelstad Foundation...said. “Had they not been so difficult, we would never have found the necessity to go ahead and...do it on our own.”...The Nevada Health and Bioscience Corporation was established in 2019...The approximately 135,000-square-foot building, on Shadow Lane in Las Vegas...is ahead of schedule and expected to open in June 2022...A notable result of the new process has been a faster process without bureaucracy...“It was wonderful to work with the corporation because they could make decisions, and make them quickly and move quickly,” Atkinson, the former dean, said. “They did all the same things that the state would have done, but the state would have taken much longer to actually get it all accomplished...“I don’t think anybody but a private corporation could have actually incorporated it all and got it done so quickly,” she added...READ MORE

With a crucial drug in the state’s supply of lethal injection materials set to expire at the end of February, Nevada officials are pressing forward in their attempt to execute death row inmate Zane Floyd, even as lawyers for Floyd are imploring the court to explore alternative methods, such as a firing squad...The experts, including multiple anesthesiologists who have experience with the drugs involved in the protocol, testified that the untried drug cocktail could result in suffering or an agonizing death...READ MORE

A charity that funds programs to expand access to emergency medical care for people in remote areas announced...it will make grants to upgrade technology at several rural Nevada hospitals...The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust said it will provide grants totaling $11.3 million to hospitals in towns including Caliente, Ely, Incline Village, Lovelock and Yerington to buy diagnostic and radiology equipment like CT scanners and X-ray devices...Walter Panzirer, a Helmsley Charitable Trust representative...said the aim is to provide access to the same equipment found in urban centers to patients at rural hospitals...READ MORE