Articles and Blogs

CMS recently published a notification on its website in response to inquiries regarding the annual reporting requirement for physician-owned hospitals.  In the notification, CMS expressed concerns about the quality of the data collected for the CY 2014 annual report and noted that it would further examine the details of the report prior to publication.  Because…Read More

Code Section 501(r) created a seismic shift in the tax exemption criteria for hospitals. Now that the IRS has unveiled the Final Regulations in this area of law, 501(r) compliance needs to become a focal point for tax-exempt hospitals, which must move swiftly to comply with the new requirements. As part of Hall Render’s ongoing…Read More

Medicare Proposes Shift in Payments On Monday, January 26, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced a proposed shift in the way health care providers are paid by expanding the use of alternative payment models.  According to the announcement, HHS has set a goal of tying 30% of traditional fee-for-service Medicare payments to quality or value through…Read More

Have you ever heard of trypanophobia? If not, it means a fear of needles, which, in this case, resulted in a jury verdict of $2.6 million to a Rite Aid pharmacist whose fear of needles prevented him from giving flu shot immunizations as a required part of his job. Is “Needle Phobia” an ADA Disability…Read More

AHA President Endorses Hall Render Stark Initiative During Congressional Hearing On Tuesday, January 21 and Wednesday, January 22, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee held a two-day hearing on the Sustainable Growth Rate (“SGR”) and other health-related initiatives.  During the hearing, Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN) questioned AHA President Richard Umbdenstock, who was one of the…Read More

In light of the recent ruling that the revised companionship services exemption COULD NOT go into effect and that the long-standing version of the exemption would REMAIN IN EFFECT, we thought it was worth going back over the original exemption requirements so that home care providers can be sure that if they are going to use…Read More

Draft Bill Seeks to Increase Medicare Reimbursement for Telehealth On Monday, January 12, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a draft bill that would expand Medicare reimbursement for telehealth services.  The members intend to include the telehealth language into a broader package of legislation known as the 21st Century Cures Initiative, which could…Read More

This article is Part Two in a series discussing ten of the most noteworthy pronouncements from the Final Regulations regarding Code Section 501(r). Part One is available here.  In this second part of the series, Hall Render addresses five areas of significant developments pertaining to the requirements for the financial assistance policy (“FAP”), limitations on…Read More

In an opinion issued on January 14, 2015 in Home Care Association of America v. Weil1, the U.S. District Court ruled that the revised companionship service exemption would not take effect and that the exemption would remain as originally promulgated in 1974 (“the Opinion”).  This means that home care providers may continue to rely upon…Read More

Through the recently released Final Regulations, the IRS and Treasury Department have provided a road map for tax-exempt hospitals as they move toward full compliance with Code Section 501(r). As Hall Render previously reported, these Final Regulations track the prior guidance in many respects, but they also make numerous significant changes that hospital organizations must…Read More