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Medicare Advantage insurer SCAN Health Plan will expand its coverage options into Arizona and Nevada for the 2022 plan year, the company announced....The growth marks the first time that SCAN has expanded beyond California and into two new markets at the same time, according to the announcement. The insurer boasts 220,000 members in the Golden State...SCAN Health Plan (Nevada) will offer plans in Clark County, Nevada and SCAN Desert Health Plan (Arizona) will provide coverage in Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties...READ MORE

University Medical Center is notifying patients of a data breach that occurred in mid-June, and offering free identity protection services for those who were affected...The data breach was "by a well-known group of cybercriminals that seek to use the information for commercial gain," according to UMC...Letters received this week in the Las Vegas valley indicate that the breach occurred in June 14 and was shut down the following day, according to UMC officials...READ MORE

University Medical Center acknowledged...that it had experienced a criminal data breach after a notorious hacker group began posting personal information purportedly obtained in the cyberattack...Images of Nevada driver’s licenses, passports and Social Security cards of around half a dozen alleged victims were posted late Monday on the hacker group’s website...The statement said there is no evidence that any clinical systems were accessed in the attack but that patients and employees would be notified that their personal information may be at risk...READ MORE

Nevada prison officials say one of the drugs they originally planned to use this month in the state’s first execution of an inmate in 15 years expires July 31. Another expires six weeks after a new evidentiary hearing a judge now has scheduled in October to decide if or when four-time convicted killer Zane Michael Floyd will receive a lethal injection...But Nevada’s lawyers said in new court filings two other drugs in the four-drug execution protocol they have submitted to the court are available at least through February...And state corrections’ officials told the judge before he ordered a delay in the execution on Monday that they have access to similar drugs that could substitute for the other two closest to expiration...READ MORE

Horse dewormer falsely believed to treat COVID-19 in short supply in Reno...Deworming season is fast approaching for horse owners in Northern Nevada. Every September through November, horses are administered medications containing ivermectin to stave off life-threatening parasitic intestinal worms...But this year, feed stores are having a difficult time keeping large-animal ivermectin medications on the shelves due to a spike in interest in the drug's use as a home remedy for COVID-19...READ MORE

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada and the Nevada Press Association have filed a federal lawsuit calling for a halt to the state’s planned execution of Zane Floyd – which would be the state’s first in 15 years — unless the process is more transparent...The lawsuit...argues that the state violates the First Amendment by interfering with the media’s ability to observe Zane Floyd’s execution in its entirety and without obstruction. The lack of transparency is especially concerning given that the state is “using experimental drug cocktails and an untested facility,”...READ MORE

Nevada will become one of the first states to allow pharmacists to prescribe human immunodeficiency virus prevention drugs to patients at risk of contracting the virus, as the state works to combat one of the highest rates of HIV diagnoses in the country...A bill signed by Gov. Steve Sisolak on June 6 authorizes pharmacists with sufficient liability coverage to prescribe, dispense and administer HIV prevention drugs — including post-exposure prophylaxis to people who may have come into contact with HIV and pre-exposure prophylaxis for people at risk — without a prescription from a practitioner starting as early as Oct. 1, in accordance with protocols to be developed by the State Board of Pharmacy over the next several months...READ MORE

Nevada will not sign on to a proposed $26 billion multistate settlement with the nation’s three largest drug distribution companies and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson — businesses accused of fueling the nation's opioid epidemic that has killed thousands of Nevadans — in hopes of getting a better deal...Attorney General Aaron Ford told The Nevada Independent...that the state would have received roughly $240 million from the settlements — an amount he called “woefully insufficient” — and that the state will instead pursue separate negotiations with the companies “to ensure that the people in this state are adequately recompensed for the damages that opioids have caused in our communities.”...READ MORE

• Practice Guidelines for the Administration of Buprenorphine for Treating OUD
• Resumption of In-person Inspections
• New Law CE
• Inspector RetiredPharmacy Inspector
  Joe “Batman” Depczynski
• New Board Investigator/Inspector
  Monica S. Segedy
  Mui Lee, RPh,

Nevada Air Guard Capt. Caleena Longworth knew at the age of 10 that she wanted to be a doctor, and by January of this year, in the final semester of her medical doctorate program, she was one class away...With the class not set to begin until April, UNLV’s Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine offered her a two-month vacation. Instead, Longworth, an Air Force veteran and native of Reno, started administering thousands of vaccinations to Nevadans at Cashman Center...READ MORE