Articles and Blogs

In United States ex rel. Schneider v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, Nat’l Ass’n [1], the D.C. Circuit re-affirms its position that contingent penalties are not obligations under the False Claims Act (“FCA”). BACKGROUND In the initial suit[2], Relator brought a qui tam action under the FCA against mortgage loan servicer JPMorgan Chase (“Chase”), alleging, in part,…Read More

As hospitals and health-related entities, like other businesses, continue to shift application hosting and data storage to the cloud and to third party data centers, they should consider what obligations to place on vendors that provide such hosting and data storage services to promote data security. One such obligation may be to require hosting service…Read More

On January 5, 2018, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) adopted a new test to determine when interns in the for-profit private sector can be excluded from minimum wage and overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and issued a revised Fact Sheet (Fact Sheet #71: Internship Programs Under The Fair Labor Standards Act)….Read More

Federal Government Shutdown Looms as Deadline Nears On January 18, the House passed a four-week continuing resolution (“CR”) that would fund the federal government through February 16. While a vote in the Senate is expected on Friday or sometime over the weekend, the bill’s chances of passing the upper chamber remain uncertain as of press…Read More

NATIONAL Worldwide ambulance market to reach $48.9B by 2025 MedPAC votes to nix MIPS CMS proposes expanding MRI coverage for patients with implantable cardiac devices Exploring the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced Model Amazon is hiring a health privacy expert for ‘new initiative’ CMS releases guidance for Medicaid work requirements: 5 things to know…Read More

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) recently issued Advisory Opinion 17-09, which approved an arrangement between a hospital and physician group in which neurosurgeons and the hospital implemented a cost-savings program where the hospital agreed to share a percentage of its cost savings resulting from the program (“Proposed Arrangement”)….Read More

CMS recently released a series of Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”) on its website providing some much needed guidance to hospitals. Among other things, CMS will allow hospitals that submitted attestations and mid-build certifications last February to get full payment under the Outpatient Prospective Payment System (“OPPS”) for dates of service on or after January 1,…Read More

Annually, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) provides $400 million in funding to health care providers who serve rural populations through its Rural Health Care Program (“RHC Program”). The RHC Program is aimed at improving and reducing the cost of communications services that are used in providing health care services to residents of the rural United…Read More

In an opinion loaded with linguistic hooks, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida recently reinforced the Supreme Court’s holding in Escobar, enthusiastically highlighting the importance of materiality and scienter in FCA cases. Background In U.S. ex rel. Ruckh v. Salus Rehabilitation, LLC, et al., Relators were successful in a qui…Read More

NATIONAL 4 Physician Compensation Factors to Watch Divided on health care, Congress backs medical research CMS opens data submission site for 2017 MACRA reporting CMS: Medicare adds 124 ACOs for 2018 10 of the most interesting healthcare transactions of 2017 AMA: Physicians generate $2.3T in economic activity 2018 Trends: Micro-Hospitals to Gain Popularity Hospitals Nationally…Read More