Articles and Blogs

On August 3, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) Bureau of Competition Director Holly Vedova penned a blog post warning merging companies against closing transactions before the FTC has concluded its review. Citing a “tidal wave” of merger filings that has stretched the FTC’s limited resources, the agency will issue form letters alerting merging parties…Read More

In a recent opinion, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals adopted an interpretation of the False Claims Act’s “knowledge” requirement based on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of a similar provision under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The Court’s application of this interpretation is good news for hospitals and health care systems that must regularly interpret…Read More

The False Claims Act has long been a fierce, but fair weapon in the government’s fight against fraud. Recently, however, profit minded trial attorneys and private entities have monetized the FCA by taking advantage of the fraud statute’s ambiguous safeguards. By creating qui tam portfolios and securing stakes in whistleblower awards, these financially driven parties…Read More

In an interesting federal district court case currently awaiting jury trial in Tennessee, the plaintiff claims that the termination of his employment at a Tennessee hospital was in retaliation for exercising his rights under the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”). The hospital that formerly employed him asked the court to grant summary judgment, arguing that…Read More

Hall Render recently hosted a webinar on July 12, Effectively Navigating the Changing Landscape: COVID-19 Vaccination Strategies for Health Care Employers. The following includes a selection of audience questions that our attorneys received during and after the webinar. We made a few additional modifications to avoid duplicate questions and responses and also decided to redact…Read More

On July 23, 2021, CMS published its proposal for changes to its Medicare Part B payment policies for calendar year 2022, including proposed changes for teaching physician billing. In addition, in the same proposed rule, CMS published a proposal to modify the reporting relating to teaching hospitals under the Open Payments system. This article describes…Read More

On April 29, 2021, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) posted Advisory Opinion No. 21-02 (“Advisory Opinion”), a favorable opinion involving an ambulatory surgery center (“ASC”) joint venture and related safe harbors to the Anti-Kickback Statute (“AKS”). This opinion is significant for many reasons, including: It is the…Read More

President Biden recently issued an Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy (the “Executive Order”). Directed at addressing competition in numerous industries and markets, including the health care and labor markets, the Executive Order includes 72 initiatives directed at more than a dozen federal agencies that will focus on removing barriers to competition…Read More

On July 1, 2021, the Departments of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Labor and Treasury and the Office of Personnel Management (collectively, the “Departments”) published a much anticipated interim final rule (“IFR”) implementing certain provisions of the No Surprises Act (the “Act”). While the IFR addresses some key aspects of the Act, it does not…Read More