Articles and Blogs

On November 28, 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) rescinded Advisory Opinion 06-04, which had been issued in 2006 to Caring Voice Coalition (“Requestor”), a nonprofit, tax-exempt, charitable organization. Requestor operated a patient assistance program (“PAP”) that provided financially needy Medicare beneficiaries with Medicare premium and cost-sharing assistance….Read More

Since the Senate approved the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act last Saturday, December 2, the tax reform process has turned to the appointment of a conference committee. This committee must reconcile the Senate version of the bill (“Senate Bill”) and the version that the House of Representatives passed in November (“House Bill”), with the goal of producing…Read More

NATIONAL For CMS Head, Improving Interoperability is Personal CVS agrees to buy Aetna in $69 billion deal that could shake up health-care industry Teladoc sees more than 100% growth in health systems, hospitals CMS takes aim at regulatory reforms to ease provider burden Amazon cancels pharma license application in Maine, raising more questions about its…Read More

Current Tax Reform Proposals Have Significant Implications for Health Care Industry As House and Senate conferees began working to reconcile the differences between the tax bills passed by their respective bodies, the health care industry waits to see what’s included in the final product. After failing to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”)…Read More

GOP Tax Bill Moves Forward with Individual Mandate Repeal On November 29, the Senate voted to begin debate on the GOP tax reform bill that includes repeal of the ACA’s individual mandate. Currently, at least two of the three Senate Republicans who blocked the ACA repeal and replace legislation earlier this year, Sens. John McCain…Read More

NATIONAL House Reps Aim to Stop $1.6B Hospital Payment Cut for 340B Drugs House asks HHS for plan on including bill of materials for medical devices Counting the costs: U.S. hospitals feeling the pain of physician burnout CAHs speak out against cuts to swing beds in Medicare extenders bill 13 health systems leading employment in…Read More

In the wake of the salacious Harvey Weinstein allegations, the topic of sexual harassment is making the headlines…again. The Weinstein story followed right on the heels of the various (and seemingly ongoing) harassment-related woes of Fox News, which, in turn, followed on the heels of the developments that came to light on the presidential campaign…Read More

On November 1, 2017, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released its Calendar Year 2018 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (“OPPS”) final rule. Among many other changes, CMS finalized its proposal to remove total knee arthroplasty (“TKA”) from the CMS inpatient-only (“IPO”) list. Effective January 1, 2018, CMS will no longer require that…Read More

This is another article in a series discussing the complete overhaul of Part 483 to Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the Requirements for States and Long-Term Care Facilities (“Final Regulations”) by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”). BACKGROUND On September 28, 2016, CMS released a complete overhaul of Part 483…Read More

Bill Introduced to Prevent 340B Cuts On November 14, a bipartisan bill was introduced to prevent CMS from implementing the $1.6 billion cut to the 340B drug discount program. The legislation, introduced by Reps. David McKinley (R-WV) and Mike Thompson (D-CA), pushes HHS to maintain the current 340B discount rate of Average Sales Price (“ASP”)…Read More