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2023 was another tough year for pharmacists working in retail settings. While average salaries grew, they did not keep pace with overall inflation. Pharmacist employment at drug stores shrank but grew at supermarkets and mass merchants...Meanwhile, employment and salaries in non-retail settings—hospitals, physician offices, outpatient centers, and home healthcare—continued to grow. These settings now employ one in three U.S. pharmacists. Greener grass—or just different soil?...READ MORE

It was August 2020. The pandemic was in full swing, straining an already weary workforce hit by a decade of relentless budget cuts and rising demands. ..One by one, the pharmacists dialed into a weekly conference call with their boss. He could have empathized with them or addressed the reality of their pressure-cooker environment – one that breeds medication errors and creates missed opportunities to prevent potentially deadly mistakes...Instead, CVS District Leader Khalil Haidar turned up the heat. He harped on his Texas-and-Louisiana-based team to hit corporate quotas: Sell more store memberships. Push for more prescription pickups. Vaccinate more people. He threatened discipline and staff cuts unless pharmacists convinced at least five customers that week to get a flu shot before flu season had even officially started...READ MORE

The Equitable Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act (H.R. 7213) is legislation to help ensure that patients can receive point-of-service testing, treatment, and vaccine services provided by pharmacists for COVID-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and strep throat. ASHP, as an executive committee member of the Future of Pharmacy Care Coalition, is working aggressively to secure congressional support for H.R. 7213. You can help by sending an email to your representative asking them to co-sponsor the bill. Personalize the email provided in ASHP’s online advocacy center with examples from your practice that demonstrate your critical role on the healthcare team...READ MORE

Hospitals throughout Nevada are facing twin challenges as beds fill with COVID-19 patients and staff falls ill from the highly contagious omicron variant...“Nevada is experiencing an abrupt increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations, predominantly in the southern region following the holidays. People are flocking to hospital emergency departments seeking COVID-19 testing, compounding the staffing problem,” they said, describing the second week of January...“Hospitals are not over-run by a COVID-19 surge as much as being understaffed as employees in all fields report being sick and unable to work. This is also further compounded by a significant increase in people coming to the emergency department solely for testing. Hospitals are not testing sites,” the Nevada Hospital Association said...READ MORE

Despite making significant strides in reducing teenage birth rates, lowering HIV infection rates and diminishing tobacco and alcohol use among young people, Nevada has dropped seven spots in a national ranking of state health outcomes since a statewide assessment was last published in 2019...The 2022 State Health Assessment, published earlier this month, was developed in partnership between Nevada’s Division of Public and Behavioral Health and other health care entities. The report, which is updated every three to five years, is a data-driven resource outlining the state’s health care strengths and challenges and recommending priorities...READ MORE

CVS Health has asked Gov. Phil Scott to veto H.353 — a last-ditch effort to block a bill it says would raise prescription drug costs for Vermonters with private insurance...H.353 started out as a bill to make drugs more affordable by regulating pharmacy benefits managers, third-party companies that negotiate medication coverage plans for consumers with private insurers. But revisions of the bill, as it worked its way through the House and Senate, would have all but guaranteed that specialty drug prescriptions given to patients in health care settings, including expensive cancer medication, would be filled at the University of Vermont Health Network’s pharmacy in Burlington, rather than through cheaper mail-order pharmacies that insurers prefer...READ MORE

Sister hospital to Northern Nevada Medical Center is the first new full-service hospital to open in the city of Reno in more than a century...Nearly two-and-a-half years since breaking ground, Reno’s newest full-service hospital is on track for a spring opening...Northern Nevada Sierra Medical Center received its certificate of occupancy on Friday, which means it can now start moving equipment into the hospital...The facility...will add 170 hospital beds to an area that has seen strong growth...To commemorate the latest milestone in the project, the center is holding a pre-opening event this Monday for select guests...READ MORE

Self-Administered Hormonal Contraceptives Dispensed Without a Prescription

Senate Bill (SB) 190 was passed during the 2021 legislative session. The language to the bill can be located here. SB 190 permits a pharmacist to dispense a self-administered hormonal contraceptive to a patient under a protocol established by regulation by the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy without a prescription from a practitioner.

Nevada Medicaid Fee-for-Service Transition of Pharmacy Benefits Management to Magellan Medicaid Administration, Inc

On July 1, 2022, Magellan Medicaid Administration, Inc, (MMA) will assume the administrative operation of pharmacy benefits management on behalf of the state of Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Health Care Financing and Policy for the Nevada Medicaid fee-for-service...READ MORE

Multiple sources confirmed with This Is Reno there are numerous allegations facing Renown and the hospital’s now former-CEO Tony Slonim. Slonim was fired for cause...as part of an investigation...Allegations range from sexual harassment, unethical behavior by top executives, financial mismanagement and an organizational culture rife with dysfunction and employee mistreatment. The investigation has not concluded, two sources said...READ MORE