Articles and Blogs

Just three months ago, the Department of Justice announced a record year for False Claims Act recoveries totaling more than $5 billion, including $2.3 billion from health care defendants alone. Helping to contribute to these recoveries was another record: over 700 whistleblower cases filed in 2014. READ MORE

Written by David B. Honig and Steven H. Pratt. On February 2, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on a case from the Southern District of Ohio, US ex rel American Systems Consulting, Inc. v Mantech Advanced Systems International. At issue was whether a court may determine whether a knowingly false statement in a proposal for... READ MORE

CMS recently published a notification on its website in response to inquiries regarding the annual reporting requirement for physician-owned hospitals.  In the notification, CMS expressed concerns about the quality of the data collected for the CY 2014 annual report and noted that it would further examine the details of the report prior to publication. ... READ MORE

Code Section 501(r) created a seismic shift in the tax exemption criteria for hospitals. Now that the IRS has unveiled the Final Regulations in this area of law, 501(r) compliance needs to become a focal point for tax-exempt hospitals, which must move swiftly to comply with the new requirements. As part of Hall Render’s... READ MORE

Medicare Proposes Shift in Payments On Monday, January 26, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced a proposed shift in the way health care providers are paid by expanding the use of alternative payment models.  According to the announcement, HHS has set a goal of tying 30% of traditional fee-for-service Medicare payments to quality or value... READ MORE

January 29, 2015 – 1:00 PM EST CHNAs and FAPs. AGB and ECAs. The Affordable Care Act brought tax-exempt hospital organizations several new acronyms and, more importantly, imposed numerous requirements that hospitals must meet to retain their tax-exempt status. With the recent release of the Final Regulations under Code Section 501(r), these hospitals must... READ MORE

Have you ever heard of trypanophobia? If not, it means a fear of needles, which, in this case, resulted in a jury verdict of $2.6 million to a Rite Aid pharmacist whose fear of needles prevented him from giving flu shot immunizations as a required part of his job. Is “Needle Phobia” an ADA... READ MORE

AHA President Endorses Hall Render Stark Initiative During Congressional Hearing On Tuesday, January 21 and Wednesday, January 22, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee held a two-day hearing on the Sustainable Growth Rate (“SGR”) and other health-related initiatives.  During the hearing, Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN) questioned AHA President Richard Umbdenstock, who was one of... READ MORE

In light of the recent ruling that the revised companionship services exemption COULD NOT go into effect and that the long-standing version of the exemption would REMAIN IN EFFECT, we thought it was worth going back over the original exemption requirements so that home care providers can be sure that if they are going to... READ MORE

Draft Bill Seeks to Increase Medicare Reimbursement for Telehealth On Monday, January 12, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a draft bill that would expand Medicare reimbursement for telehealth services.  The members intend to include the telehealth language into a broader package of legislation known as the 21st Century Cures Initiative, which... READ MORE