Articles and Blogs

The OIG is soliciting proposals and recommendations for additional Anti-Kickback Statute, Safe Harbors and OIG Special Fraud Alerts.1  The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requires an annual notice period to solicit these comments in order to identify and protect non-abusive arrangements from the Anti-Kickback Statute.

HFMA Endorses Stark Administration Simplification Act On January 24, the Healthcare Financial Management Association (“HFMA”) officially endorsed the Stark Administrative Simplification Act (H.R. 3776). The bill is the result of a lobbying effort by the Hall Render Stark Law Correction Coalition (“SLCC”). An organization of hospital and health systems from across the country, the SLCC seeks to…Read More

Not So Quick On January 22, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) published in Federal Registerthe  its official rescission of the so-called “Quickie Election Rule” that would have greatly speeded up union elections in the private sector.  The rescission of the rule restores the NLRB’s former election processes and procedures.  In practical terms, the…Read More

“Sicker than a Dog” Under the ADA, an employer is required to “reasonably accommodate” a “qualified individual with a disability.”  In this recent case, the court had occasion to consider whether an open-ended request for leave was “reasonable” when it was made by an employee who claimed to be “sicker than a dog” and was…Read More

The EEOC’s first systemic lawsuit brought under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (“GINA”) has resulted in a defendant nursing and rehabilitation center agreeing to settle for $370,000 and other penalties as explained below. Employers will recall that GINA prohibits employers from discriminating and retaliating against employees or job applicants based on genetic information and restricts…Read More

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