Articles and Blogs

A trend in real estate-related False Claims Act litigation should put hospitals and other health care providers on notice that relators are looking for big paydays for non-compliant real estate arrangements. The relators described in this article are real estate professionals who are bringing technically complex claims with little to no institutional knowledge of the…Read More

Last week, Congress passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (“Budget”), and President Obama signed the Budget into law on November 2, 2015.  Among many other changes, the Budget includes an impending exclusion on hospital coverage for off-campus hospital outpatient departments that first bill for services on or after November 2, 2015.  Even though site-neutral payment proposals…Read More

On Thursday, October 29, 2015, CMS issued the pre-publication copy of the final home health PPS rule for CY 2016 (“the Rule”).  The Rule adopts most of the proposals from July but makes a few key changes. Rates, Payments and Home Health Spending Although CMS makes several key changes to the final rule, CMS projects…Read More

On October 30, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released the CY 2016 final rule for revisions to Payment Policies under the Physician Fee Schedule (“Final Rule”) following the proposed rule published in July 2015 (“Proposed Rule”).1  Among other Stark Law revisions, the Final Rule updates the Stark Law regulations for physician-owned…Read More

Overview On October 30, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued the final rule (“Final Rule”) in follow up to the proposed rule published in July 2015 (“Proposed Rule”).1  It is anticipated that the final regulations will be published in the Federal Register on November 16, 2015.  The Final Rule establishes two new exceptions…Read More

Over the years, we have “followed” the NLRB’s analysis of employer social medial policies. You can catch up on this evolution by accessing our past HR Insights blogs. 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 On October 21, in an unpublished opinion, the Second Circuit (with district courts in Connecticut, New…Read More

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 On October 21, in an unpublished opinion, the Second Circuit (with district courts in Connecticut, New York and Vermont) affirmed the NLRB’s August 2014 decision in the controversial Triple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