Articles and Blogs

On September 27, 2012 CMS issued an advance copy of the State Operations Manual (“SOM”) revisions to Appendix P of the SOM which addresses Long Term Care Facility survey protocol. The SOM guidance also makes changes to various survey forms resulting from the new quality measures reports.

This Health Law News article is Part VII in a series discussing the new governance study, “Governance in Large Nonprofit Health Systems: Current Profile and Emerging Patterns.” The full Report is available here. Part I – Executive Summary was published in Hall Render’s Health Law News on August 8, 2012, Part II – Public and…Read More

On September 24, the mHealth Task Force, released its recommendations to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which recommends greater FCC involvement in mobile health and greater coordination with the FDA, ONC, HHS and other federal agencies.

Introduction The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) will withhold 1% of Medicare reimbursement payments as part of the Value-Based Purchasing Program (“VBP Program”) beginning today, October 1, 2012.  This money will be used to fund incentive payments for participating hospitals in the VBP Program.  Under the VBP Program, hospitals compete with one another…Read More

Administration Warns Hospitals on Gaming EHR System On September 24, HHS Secretary Sebelius and Attorney General Holder sent a joint letter to the five major hospital trade associations warning against using electronic health records (“EHRs”) to artificially inflate Medicare and Medicaid payments.

Executive Summary On September 27, 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) issued its findings resulting from a study of Medicare Part D billings and payments for Schedule II drug refills.  Schedule II drugs have the highest potential for abuse of any prescription drug in the United States as…Read More

On September 7, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected a defendant’s attempt to enforce an arbitration clause contained in and presented to the plaintiffs only in unsolicited emails following the plaintiffs’ alleged online enrollment in the defendant’s service.  (HYPERLINK TO OPINION)  The defendant argued that the plaintiffs assented to the…Read More

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (“ONC”) released this week a report , “The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (“ONC”) released this week a report summarizing the discussion and key findings from the Behavioral Health Roundtable held on July 24 about the adoption of health information technologies among behavioral…Read More

Introduction On July 26, 2012, with further amendment on August 14, 2012, the Department of Justice announced that its Civil Rights Division will be partnering with U.S. Attorneys’ offices across the country to make sure that people with disabilities have access to medical information in an understandable format.1 This initiative – the Barrier-Free Health Care…Read More

This Health Law News article is Part VI in a series discussing the new governance study, “Governance in Large Nonprofit Health Systems: Current Profile and Emerging Patterns.” The full Report is available here. Part I – Executive Summary was published in Hall Render’s Health Law News on August 8, 2012, Part II – Public and…Read More