Articles and Blogs

Recently, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced it had entered into a $42 million settlement (“Settlement”)[1] with the owners of a California acute care hospital (“Parent Company”) to resolve allegations that the Parent Company had violated the False Claims Act by submitting false claims to Medicare and MediCal (California Medicaid) programs. The Parent Company... READ MORE

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Join Hall Render at Seattle University’s Health Law Certificate program on August 9-11 as we discuss “The Shifting Landscape of Health Law: What You Need to Know for Your Client and Yourself.” The three-day program, co-chaired by Hall Render attorneys Barbra Nault and Sevilla Rhoads, will focus on the shifting landscape of health law.... READ MORE

CMS Issues 2018 Hospital Payment Rule On August 2, CMS announced the fiscal year (“FY”) 2018 Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System and Long-Term Care Hospital (“LTCH”) Prospective Payment System final rule, which will provide acute care hospitals with a total increase in Medicare spending on inpatient hospital payments of $2.4 billion in FY 2018.... READ MORE

NATIONAL Health system and physician group alignment: The strategies that don’t work — and those that do New Senate bill seeks to reduce restrictions on telemedicine use The vital role of hospital technology selection in achieving post-merger alignment Amazon has a secret health tech team called 1492 working on medical records, virtual doc visits... READ MORE

On July 7, 2017, the Survey and Certification Group at Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a memorandum, “Revision of Civil Money Penalty (“CMP”) Policies and CMP Analytic Tool” (“S&C Memo”) detailing revisions to policies and the analytic tool used to assess and determine CMPs for skilled nursing facilities. The stated goal is... READ MORE

On July 25, 2017, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a provider-friendly decision in Allina Health Services v. Price, Case No. 16-5255 (more commonly known as Allina II), reversing the negative decision the hospitals received at the district court level. The court’s reversal stems from its reasoning that the “pre-2004... READ MORE

The Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) recently published work plans and reports detailing their intent to increase enforcement and audits of eligible providers who received meaningful use EHR incentive payments. Eligible providers should anticipate increased government scrutiny of past and future meaningful use EHR incentive payments... READ MORE

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