Articles and Blogs

Give and Take: CMS Announces Repayment for 2019 Site-Neutral Cuts Yet Announces Same Cuts for 2020 This week, CMS announced that any hospital paid a lower amount for a routine clinic visit in 2019 due to implementation of the site-neutral payment policy will automatically be paid the difference from the older, higher amount. CMS began…Read More

Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that 3 charities will pay a total of $10 million to settle claims that the charities operated as conduits for illegal kickbacks to pharmaceutical companies. The industry-wide probe also implicated several pharmaceutical companies that, according to the DOJ, improperly used charitable foundations as a way to assist…Read More

House and Senate Panels Announce Surprise Billing Fix On December 8, leaders from the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (“HELP”) and House Energy and Commerce committees announced an agreement on surprise billing legislation. The proposal is intended to end surprise billing of patients by creating a new system of dispute resolution that includes arbitration….Read More

For the fifth time, Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (“CCBHCs”) have received a short-term funding extension with Congress’ last-minute passage of a temporary government-wide spending bill. Funding for CCBHCs in this extension runs through December 20, 2019. This measure was signed into law late on November 21, just in the nick of time as this…Read More

Recently, the Indiana Supreme Court clarified the judiciary’s inability to add terms to an impermissibly broad nonsolicitation agreement, even if specifically requested in the agreement itself. Background When the terms of a noncompetition or nonsolicitation agreement are disputed, parties often ask courts to determine whether the terms are reasonable. Indiana courts administer this task by…Read More

On November 27, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced that an Affiliated Covered Entity made up of 10 hospital covered entities (“ACE Organization”) will pay a penalty of $2.175 million and enter into a two-year Corrective Action Plan (“CAP”) to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance…Read More

When an entity merges with or acquires another business, the parties to the transaction face a variety of issues. When attempting to sort out some of the more-dominant deal points (e.g., ever-changing regulatory requirements, successful employee integration, preferred methods of financing, etc.), many entities inadvertently overlook other details that, despite being seemingly routine, could greatly…Read More

An Indiana hospital owns a medical building in Newburgh, Warrick County, Indiana (the “Property”) by way of a wholly-owned subsidiary that is an Indiana nonprofit corporation (the “Applicant”). The Applicant leases parts of the Property to its affiliates for the delivery of health care services. For the 2014 and 2015 tax years, the Warrick County…Read More