Articles and Blogs

NATIONAL Amazon adds to its list of HIPAA-eligible machine learning tools Leapfrog releases Fall 2018 safety grades showing medical errors, safety issues prevail in red and blue states Hospital CEOs Agree That Systemness Focus Drives Results Doctors as disruptors? AMA CEO says medicine’s future demands it 93% of MIPS-eligible clinicians to get positive payment adjustment…Read More

Democrats Set to Control Key Health Committees in Next Session of Congress The Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives following the recent midterm elections will significantly change the political landscape for health care issues when lawmakers return for the 116th Session of Congress next year. Overall, the election results will mean divided government and…Read More

Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Secretary Alex Azar announced on Thursday, November 8, 2018 that HHS intends to reconsider some of the episode-based payment models that it withdrew almost one year ago. According to Secretary Azar, HHS is exploring new and improved episode-based payment models, including a mandatory bundled payment model for radiation oncology.[1] Secretary…Read More

A recent decision from a U.S. District Court in Wisconsin held that the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) claim brought by the former employee of an assisted living center could not be dismissed. The outcome and the facts are instructive for other health care employers. The former employee of the assisted living facility, who…Read More

Have you ever asked or been asked, “What can I put away for my retirement next year?” The answer could be different for almost every year. Most of the limitations in the Internal Revenue Code are indexed with inflation. They increase in many years but not all. The IRS and Social Security Administration have released…Read More

Several states require that any sale of charitable assets must be reviewed by the attorney general to assess whether the sale is for fair consideration and in the best interests of charitable beneficiaries. The New York Attorney General’s Charities Bureau (“Charities Bureau”) is responsible for supervising charitable organizations to protect donors and beneficiaries of those…Read More

On November 1, 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released its final rule for the Calendar Year (“CY”) 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (“MPFS Final Rule”). Among many other changes, CMS finalized maintaining payments for certain non-excepted (non-grandfathered) off-campus provider-based hospital departments (“PBDs”) at 40 percent of the Outpatient Prospective Payment System…Read More

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation proposed to lower the cost of Medicare Part B outpatient prescription drugs by establishing their prices based on lower drug prices of other advanced industrial nations as compiled in an “international price index” (“IPI”) and changing the way the current drug add-on…Read More

The November 6, 2018 midterm elections will be remembered for a lot of things, including the wave of marijuana legalization that followed after polls closed. A majority of voters in Utah and Missouri endorsed ballot initiatives that legalized the medicinal use of marijuana in both states. Michigan, for its part, became the first Midwest state,…Read More

NATIONAL DJO launches 1st outpatient arthroplasty risk assessment tool Hospitals slammed with $380M in CMS cuts, industry cries foul CMS finalizes site neutral payment rule AHA says payer consolidation, not hospital prices, raises healthcare costs 3 changes potentially coming to HIPAA OCR Announces Next Round of HIPAA Audits Will Focus on Enforcements CMS Publishes CY…Read More