Articles and Blogs

On July 15, a new law in Kentucky took effect that expands the prescribing authority for advanced practice registered nurses (“APRNs”). Kentucky Revised Statutes 314.042 allows APRNs that have been prescribing non-scheduled legend drugs under physician supervision for four years to prescribe these drugs without physician oversight. Proponents of the law say that the... READ MORE

Background On July 14, 2014, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published a proposed rule that would allow physician-owned hospitals to use additional data sources to support requests for exceptions to the ban on expansion of physician-owned hospitals.1 Under the Affordable Care Act’s (“ACA’s”) amendments to the Physician Self-Referral Law (“Stark Law”),... READ MORE

Kentucky pharmacists take note: soon you may have to update your prescription drug tracking and dispensation procedures to reflect proposed changes to the Kentucky Administrative Regulations. Section 045 of Chapter 55 in Title 902 of the Kentucky Administrative Regulations currently contains a list of drugs that are excluded from the licensing, distribution, recordkeeping and... READ MORE

On July 14, 2014, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued the Outpatient Prospective Payment System Proposed Rule for Calendar Year 2015 (“Proposed Rule”), but the Proposed Rule also addresses issues unrelated to OPPS.  Among other changes, the Proposed Rule eliminates the physician certification statement requirement for most inpatient stays paid under... READ MORE

S.2501 Eliminates Readmission Penalties Related to Patient Socioeconomic Status On June 19, 2014, U.S. Senators Manchin, Wicker, Kirk and Nelson introduced Senate Bill 2501 entitled The Hospital Readmissions Program Accuracy and Accountability Act of 2014 (“S.2501”) to ensure that hospitals experiencing excessive readmissions are not financially penalized for serving low-income patients.  S.2501 was referred... READ MORE

On July 1, 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published the home health prospective payment rule (the “Proposed Regulations”) for calendar year 2015.  Importantly, the Proposed Regulations contain the biggest change to the “face-to-face” requirement to date. This article will explain proposed changes to this requirement, as well as discuss other... READ MORE

The Food and Drug Administration (the “FDA” or “agency”) recently released a draft guidance document (“Draft Guidance”) in which the agency proposes to stop enforcing the regulatory requirements applicable to several types of devices and software that transfer, store, convert, format and display medical data.  This Draft Guidance, if finalized, will apply to Medical... READ MORE

This Health Care Tax News article is Part IV in a series discussing the proposed regulations under Code Section 501(r).  Part I provided a general overview of why Hospital Organizations should move forward to comply with the proposed regulations, Part II provides an overview of preparing for a Community Health Needs Assessment and Part III... READ MORE

This Health Care Tax News article is Part III in a series discussing the proposed regulations under Code Section 501(r).  Part I provided a general overview of why Hospital Organizations should move forward to comply with the proposed regulations and Part II provides an overview of preparing for a Community Health Needs Assessment. The... READ MORE

This Health Care Tax News article is Part II in a series discussing the proposed regulations under Code Section 501(r).  The previous installment provided a general overview of why Hospital Organizations should move forward to comply with the proposed regulations and can be accessed by clicking here.  Following enactment of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”)... READ MORE