Articles and Blogs

Citing its “Right of Access Initiative,” on September 9, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced that a hospital in Florida (the “Hospital”) will settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) by paying a civil penalty of $85,000 and adopting a corrective action…Read More

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) could revoke or deny a provider’s or supplier’s Medicare enrollment if it determines that any of its affiliations pose an “undue risk” under a Final Rule announced on September 5, 2019 (“Enrollment Rule”). Also under the Enrollment Rule, providers and suppliers (“Providers”) selected by CMS will be…Read More

CMS recently posted reminders regarding the availability of MIPS final scores and the deadline to request review if an error has been made: “If you participated in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) in 2018, your performance feedback, which includes your MIPS final score and payment adjustment factor(s), are available for review on the Quality Payment…Read More

In 2014, Congress enacted the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (“PAMA”), changing the landscape of Medicare reimbursement for lab services. PAMA required the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) to establish a single, national Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (“CLFS”) based on current charges in the private health care market. Below, we provide background on…Read More

On August 26, 2019, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (“SAMHSA”) issued two Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) proposing changes to the Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records at Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 2 (“Part 2”). Part 2 is a federal privacy law that protects substance use…Read More

In recent years, many health care providers have dedicated substantial resources to community health or initiatives targeted at improving social determinants of health. As outlined in a recent Hall Render article, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 gives health care providers a mechanism for furthering such goals while realizing significant tax savings by…Read More

A federal district court in Connecticut recently applied the Supreme Court’s favorable opinion in the Allina case (which we previously wrote about here), compelling the Secretary to adhere to notice-and-comment rulemaking of Medicare policy when it affects providers’ eligibility, benefits or payment. Additionally, CMS cannot use a preclusion statute to avoid challenges for which it did not follow…Read More