Articles and Blogs

Over the years, we have “followed” the NLRB’s analysis of employer social medial policies. Employee’s “Like” of Another’s Facebook Rant Is Protected The evolution continues. On October 21, in an unpublished opinion, the Second Circuit (with district courts in Connecticut, New York and Vermont) affirmed the NLRB’s August 2014 decision in the controversial Triple Play…Read More

Executive Summary On October 28, 2015, the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) revised its June 30, 2015 guidance delaying the enforcement of key track and trace requirements of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (“DSCSA”) for Dispensers1 (including pharmacies, health systems and physician offices) until March 1, 2016 (“Guidance”). Previously, on June 30, 2015, the…Read More

Congress Passes Budget Bill – Targets Off-Campus Hospital Departments Around 3 AM on October 30, the Senate passed a sweeping two-year budget deal that also extends the federal debt limit to March 2017. The agreement, which passed the House on Thursday, October 29, helps avert a government shutdown and a default on the nation’s debt….Read More

On October 12, 2015, three Texas hospitals filed suit against the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), the Secretary of HHS (“Secretary”) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) seeking to reverse CMS’s decision to grant the request of a Texas physician-owned hospital (“POH”) to expand the hospital’s current facility by 100…Read More

Yesterday, the House passed a sweeping budget bill that impacts Medicare coverage of services provided in off-campus hospital departments.  Currently, Medicare pays for items and services provided in both on- and off-campus hospital outpatient departments as hospital services when those departments are in compliance with 42 CFR §413.65 (the Medicare “provider-based rule”).  With some limited…Read More

The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) has reviewed a number of private employer rules restricting off-duty employees’ access to employer facilities. In some cases, the NLRB has held that the employer’s rule was unlawfully overbroad because it granted the employer too much discretion to determine the business reason for an employee’s access.  In other cases,…Read More

All Work and No Pay A recent provisionally approved settlement in a wage and hour class and collective action case serves as an important reminder for employers of the risks and potential costs of hiring interns to perform work without pay.  In Tart et al. v. Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. et al, two plaintiffs filed…Read More

House Passes Reconciliation Bill On October 23, the House moved forward a reconciliation bill that repeals major provisions of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) and defunds Planned Parenthood for one year.  Reconciliation, which is a complicated budget procedure that allows the Senate to pass legislation with a simple majority, repeals the individual and employer mandates…Read More

Menorah Medical Center believed it was complying with the Kansas State peer review statute when it required peer review investigations be kept confidential, when it told employees that they were not allowed to bring a union representative to a peer review committee meeting and when it refused to provide peer review committee documents to the…Read More

Executive Summary The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) has engaged StrategicHealthSolutions, LLC (“Strategic”) as a Supplemental Medical Review Contractor (“SMRC”) to conduct post-payment claim reviews of selected Part A and Part B claims for blepharoplasty and other eyelid procedures.