Articles and Blogs

House Approves SGR Repeal On Thursday, March 26, the House overwhelmingly approved the bipartisan Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (H.R. 2) to repeal the Medicare physician payment formula.  The bill passed with a vote of 392-37, with the support of 212 Republicans and 180 Democrats.  The legislation now shifts to the Senate,…Read More

Summary of the Bill The United States House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a measure this week to repeal the Sustainable Grow Rate (“SGR”), which has been used to determine Medicare physician payment rates for more than a decade.  The SGR was established as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 as a method for…Read More

Yesterday, March 25, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court published its long-awaited opinion in the case of Peggy Young v. United Parcel Service. The issue in this case was whether an employer must reasonably accommodate a pregnant worker as it does other workers who are not pregnant. The Court vacated the Fourth Circuit’s decision affirming summary judgment…Read More

In January, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced that HHS is accelerating Medicare’s transition to “alternative payment models.”  HHS’s goal is to shift 30 percent of all Medicare provider payments to alternative payment models by 2016 and for 50 percent of all Medicare payments to be in alternative payment models by 2018.  These goals, according to HHS, will be…Read More

Lawmakers Moving Closer to Permanent SGR Repeal and Replacement On Thursday, March 19, House leaders, led by Rep. Michael Burgess, M.D. (R-TX), introduced part of a legislative package to permanently repeal and replace the Medicare physician payment formula known as the Sustainable Growth Rate (“SGR”), which is set to expire on March 31. However, the most…Read More

A Helpful Memo? Almost every employer has an employee handbook of some sort or at least a set of rules and policies that are established to let employees know what is expected of them. In the private sector, the NLRB has been focusing for several years on rules and policies that are too broad and…Read More

Rumors Swirl as Deadline for SGR Deal Nears With the Sustainable Growth Rate (“SGR”) “patch” set to expire on March 31, 2015, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have been discussing a possible deal on a permanent repeal and replacement of the physician payment formula.  Earlier in the week, it…Read More

In Indiana Patient’s Compensation Fund v. Holcomb, the Indiana Supreme Court addressed a question of first impression regarding whether Indiana’s Medical Malpractice Act’s cap on attorney fees from a Patient Compensation Fund (“Fund”) award also applies to reduce the Fund’s liability. Holcomb was an adult wrongful death medical malpractice case in which the trial court…Read More

With the last Sustainable Growth Rate (“SGR”) “patch” set to expire on March 31, 2015, lawmakers on Capitol Hill must soon decide whether to pass another “patch” or to finally tackle the issue of permanent SGR repeal and replacement. Just last week, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman…Read More

On March 9, 2015, Wisconsin became the 25th state to enact Right to Work legislation with Governor Scott Walker signing Senate Bill No. 44 into law.Wisconsin’s Right to Work law “prohibits a person from requiring, as a condition of obtaining or continuing employment, an individual to refrain or resign from membership in a labor organization, to become or…Read More