Articles and Blogs

On July 1, 2013, a new law comes into effect in Indiana that dramatically impacts an individual’s ability to provide greater certainty with respect to his or her end of life care planning and offers a new advance directive to individuals. Indiana recently enacted a law, Indiana Code Section 16-36-6, that establishes the use of…Read More

It has been a busy week for the Supreme Court as it reaches the end of its current term.  On Monday, two significant decisions were handed down that directly affect employment law.  The first was the Court’s clarification of the meaning of “supervisor” for purposes of Title VII discrimination.  The second decision deals with the…Read More

Today, June 24, 2013, the U. S. Supreme Court cleared the air on the question of who is a supervisor for purposes of discrimination cases arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.  In this case that has been pending since 2006, the Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, ruled that the broad…Read More

MedPAC Submits June Report to Congress On June 14, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (“MedPAC”) submitted its annual June report to Congress on Medicare and the Health Care Delivery System.  The Commission estimated that Medicare payments to doctors will be cut by 24.4% on January 1, 2014 if Congress does not pass legislation to correct the…Read More

Executive Summary On June 13, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) posted Advisory Opinion 13-03 (“AO”), in which it considered whether a clinical laboratory’s proposal to contract with physician practices to enable the practices to provide clinical lab services to their non-federal health care program beneficiaries only, potentially…Read More

On June 13, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced that it reached a settlement with a California medical center (“Medical Center”) 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”) that was…Read More

The NLRB’s rule requiring private sector employers to post a “Notice of Employee Rights” took another hit from another federal appeals court.  The rule that was scheduled to go into effect early in 2012 was enjoined by lower federal courts last year and was ultimately struck down by a decision of a federal appeals court…Read More

Delayed Debt Ceiling Could Affect Provider Payment Bill The Congressional Budget Office (“CBO”) released their June report showing the government should be able to stay under the debt ceiling until October or November of this year. Many inside health circles believe that Congress will feel less pressure to fix the Sustainable Growth Rate (“SGR”) formula,…Read More

On July 1, 2013, House Bill 1135 takes effect.  The bill amends several current statutes and creates Ind.Code §25-23.4-1 et seq. for certified direct entry midwives (“CDEM”).  The new law includes the following provisions that could potentially affect hospitals and claims involving CDEM. Amendments to existing statutes include: IC §16-37-2-9 is amended to require additional…Read More

Discharge for Lactation Is Sex Discrimination In a recent decision, a federal appeals court held that a termination for “lactating or expressing milk” is sex discrimination under Title VII because it would clearly impose upon women “a burden that male employees need not – indeed, could not – suffer.”  The Court also ruled that lactation…Read More