Articles and Blogs

House Passes Massive Government Spending Bill On Wednesday, the House passed a $1.1 trillion government-wide spending bill.  The bill (H.R. 3547), which passed 359-67, establishes the discretionary spending level for the fiscal year and should end the threat of a government shutdown for much of the remainder of 2014. 

Executive Summary Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman is forming a group appeal relating to a negative payment adjustment made by CMS and implemented in the Federal Fiscal Year (“FFY”) 2014 Final Inpatient Prospective Payment System (“IPPS”) rule published August 19, 2013.  By this rule, CMS decreased IPPS payments to hospitals by 0.2% to offset claimed…Read More

An employee who is caught sleeping on the job will usually end up getting fired. Indeed, this is what happened when a night shift employee was caught sleeping numerous times. The employee was given progressive warnings, including a final warning, before getting caught the last time and was fired. This seems pretty straightforward; however, in…Read More

Extensive Resource Materials Available The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”)  launched a new educational online resource on January 15, 2014, which has extensive materials to help hospitals prevent worker injuries, assess workplace safety needs, enhance safe patient handling programs and implement safety and health management systems. The materials include fact books,…Read More

House Energy and Commerce Republicans Voice Support for Health Extenders On January 9, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing to examine a number of Medicare funding programs set to expire.  In the recent past, Congress has annually renewed some 20 temporary programs (known as “Medicare extenders”) as part of a bigger…Read More

This past year has seen some of the biggest changes for health care providers in recent memory.  While the shutdown of the federal government and the rollout of HealthCare.gov made headlines around the country in 2013, many additional important recent health law developments have impacted, or will impact, your hospital or health system just as much,…Read More

Executive Summary The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) is a major litigation risk for hospitals and health care providers who use text messages, artificial or pre-recorded voice messages and other automated dialing technologies to reach patients.  Hundreds of class action lawsuits have been filed in recent years seeking damages that amount to millions of dollars…Read More

NLRB Throws in the Towel Yesterday, the NLRB announced that it has decided not to seek Supreme Court review of two U.S. Court of Appeals decisions invalidating the NLRB’s Notice Posting Rule, which would have required most private sector employers to post a notice of employee rights in the workplace.  We have written about the…Read More

On December 26, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced that it reached a settlement with a Massachusetts dermatology practice (“Physician Practice”) stemming from alleged violations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) Privacy Rule. The settlement follows an investigation by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) upon receiving…Read More