Articles and Blogs

On Tuesday, September 30, CMS released data surrounding physicians and academic hospitals’ financial ties to drug and device makers.  The Open Payment website attempts to make public all payments to doctors and teaching hospitals by drug and medical device companies.  The payments range from meals to promotional speaking to research. The current online version of the…Read More

Over the past decade, hospitals have become increasingly regulated. In response, most hospitals have elected to implement corporate compliance programs. While these programs serve an important purpose, most fail to specifically address an area that is highly regulated – the leasing of hospital real estate. Managing hospital leasing arrangements can be extremely tedious work and…Read More

Leslie R. Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, announced recently that all new qui tam complaints would be “shared by the Civil Division with the Criminal Division as soon as the cases are filed.” Fraud prosecutors will now review all qui tam complaints to determine whether to open a parallel criminal investigation.

Executive Summary A spokesperson for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced on September 17, 2014 at the Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund conference that all new qui tam (i.e., whistleblower) complaints filed under the False Claims Act (“FCA”) will be reviewed by the Criminal Division of the DOJ.  While concurrent…Read More

HHS Report Projects Impact of Uncompensated Care on Hospitals On Wednesday, September 24, HHS released a report that projected hospitals will save $5.7 billion in 2014 in uncompensated care costs due to the Affordable Care Act.  The report calculates that in the 26 states that accepted federal money to extend Medicaid eligibility, hospitals are expected to save…Read More

Congress Passes Post-Acute Care Bill On September 18, the Senate passed, by unanimous consent, a bill that would require post-acute care providers to submit standardized data on its services. The bipartisan legislation (H.R. 4994), which was passed by the House a day earlier,  also requires HHS and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (“MedPAC”) to provide Congress…Read More

Ways and Means Releases Draft Program Integrity Legislation On September 9, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health released a draft bill that includes the Hall Render Stark Initiative legislation. The Protecting Integrity in Medicare Act (“PIMA”) of 2014 is aimed at combating fraud, waste and abuse in the Medicare program, and central to the draft…Read More

On September 5, 2014, the Indiana Court of Appeals issued an opinion affirming the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the hospital defendant.  Plaintiff asserted teaching hospitals have a duty to specifically identify on its consent forms (both by name and qualification) all medical personnel, including interns and residents, that may be…Read More

Constitutional or Not? On February 1, 2012, Indiana became the 23rd state to adopt a statute that prohibits private employers and unions from entering into agreements that compel union membership and the payment of dues and fees as a condition of employment.  This so-called Right-to-Work Law was the focus of intense partisan debate, which led to…Read More

As we approach the end of the 2014 calendar year and turn toward 2015, the “pay-or-play” penalties of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”) will rise to the forefront of challenges for many employers.  Many employers are looking once again at whether they must provide health care coverage to employees in order to…Read More