Articles and Blogs

To be published in the February 17, 2015 Federal Register, CMS has extended its deadline for finalizing the Affordable Care Act’s (“ACA”) 60-day payback rule. This is the rule that requires a Medicare or Medicaid provider to return an identified overpayment within 60 days of its identification. On day 61, the overpayment becomes a violation of the... READ MORE

The Timeline Recently, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced an ambitious timeline for transitioning away from the fee-for-service payment system to one based on value.  Specifically, HHS’s goal is for 30% of all Medicare provider payments to be in “alternative payment models” by 2016 and for 50% of Medicare provider payments to be in alternative... READ MORE

This article has been republished with permission from the American Health Law Association. On December 31, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a guidance stating that it will delay enforcement of certain new product tracing requirements, included in the recently enacted Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), until May 1. The delayed requirements... 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

This article is Part Two in a series discussing ten of the most noteworthy pronouncements from the Final Regulations regarding Code Section 501(r). Part One is available here.  In this second part of the series, Hall Render addresses five areas of significant developments pertaining to the requirements for the financial assistance policy (“FAP”), limitations... READ MORE

In an opinion issued on January 14, 2015 in Home Care Association of America v. Weil1, the U.S. District Court ruled that the revised companionship service exemption would not take effect and that the exemption would remain as originally promulgated in 1974 (“the Opinion”).  This means that home care providers may continue to rely... READ MORE

Through the recently released Final Regulations, the IRS and Treasury Department have provided a road map for tax-exempt hospitals as they move toward full compliance with Code Section 501(r). As Hall Render previously reported, these Final Regulations track the prior guidance in many respects, but they also make numerous significant changes that hospital organizations... READ MORE

As Hall Render previously reported, the IRS released the long awaited Code Section 501(r) final regulations on December 29, 2014.  The significance of Code Section 501(r) and these final regulations for tax-exempt hospital organizations cannot be overstated as they represent the biggest change to the tax exemption criteria for hospitals since the IRS announced... READ MORE

Executive Summary Under the federal Stark Law, hospitals may provide non-monetary compensation to physicians up to an aggregate amount of $392 for calendar year 2015.  The dollar limit for “medical staff incidental benefits” (e.g., meals, parking and other items or incidental services that are used on the hospital’s campus) has been increased to less... READ MORE