Articles and Blogs

NATIONAL Worldwide ambulance market to reach $48.9B by 2025 MedPAC votes to nix MIPS CMS proposes expanding MRI coverage for patients with implantable cardiac devices Exploring the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced Model Amazon is hiring a health privacy expert for ‘new initiative’ CMS releases guidance for Medicaid work requirements: 5 things to... READ MORE

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) recently issued Advisory Opinion 17-09, which approved an arrangement between a hospital and physician group in which neurosurgeons and the hospital implemented a cost-savings program where the hospital agreed to share a percentage of its cost savings resulting from the program (“Proposed... READ MORE

CMS recently released a series of Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”) on its website providing some much needed guidance to hospitals. Among other things, CMS will allow hospitals that submitted attestations and mid-build certifications last February to get full payment under the Outpatient Prospective Payment System (“OPPS”) for dates of service on or after January... READ MORE

NATIONAL 4 Physician Compensation Factors to Watch Divided on health care, Congress backs medical research CMS opens data submission site for 2017 MACRA reporting CMS: Medicare adds 124 ACOs for 2018 10 of the most interesting healthcare transactions of 2017 AMA: Physicians generate $2.3T in economic activity 2018 Trends: Micro-Hospitals to Gain Popularity Hospitals... READ MORE

1) Health Insurance Mega-Mergers Crash to Earth and Other Antitrust Updates Dashed Mergers In the area of antitrust law, 2017 saw the resolution of two health insurance mega-mergers. On January 23, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (“U.S. District Court, D.C.”) ruled in favor of the U.S. Department of Justice... READ MORE

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) announced its long-awaited “BPCI Advanced” model on January 9. The model – which is voluntary – will initially include 29 inpatient clinical episodes and 3 outpatient clinical episodes (a list of the 32 clinical episodes can be found here). BPCI Advanced Participants must elect to be... READ MORE

As we noted in a previous article, significant Medicare payment cuts for certain 340B-participating hospitals[1] (“Covered Entities”) went into effect as of January 1, 2018 after a federal district court judge declined to take action to prevent implementation of certain 2018 Outpatient Prospective Payment System (“OPPS”) final rule (“Final Rule”) provisions. These changes represent... READ MORE

NATIONAL FDA chief: I’m surprised it took big tech this long to get into health care Will 2018 be the year of Catholic health care dominance? U.S. medical device tax back in effect after two-year pause 13 healthcare M&A deals that made headlines in 2017 CMS reaffirms its ban on texting physician orders, clarifies... READ MORE

Over the past few years, rural health care providers have struggled to recruit full-time physicians to their communities. This has caused a number of providers to consider part-time arrangements with physicians. The rural provider considering a part-time arrangement has at least two options: 1) the provider could allow the physician to lease space within... READ MORE

On December 29, 2017, a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia DENIED a motion to enjoin significant Medicare payment cuts for certain hospitals that participate in the 340B Drug Pricing Program (“340B Program”) that are scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2018. As a result, the Medicare... READ MORE