Articles and Blogs

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) launched the Health IT Dashboard today. The Health IT Dashboard has been established to present key information about the strategy of ONC, its health care innovation grants programs, and available research data tracking the nationwide adoption of health care IT.  The Health IT Dashboard has…Read More

After nearly three years of difficult litigation, the matter of Equity Industrial Partners (Needham, MA) vs. 7900 Rockville, LLC (Indianapolis, IN) was successfully completed with full satisfaction of Equity’s judgment against 7900, first entered in October, 2009. The case involved payment of real estate taxes following the $15 million purchase by Equity of the 7900…Read More

A federal magistrate in a case alleging discrimination denied a hospital’s motion for a protective order preventing the discovery of peer review and credentialing files. In Awwad v. Largo Medical Center Inc., (M.D. Fla., No. 8:11-CV-1638, 4/12/12), a Florida physician, Awwad, claims the employing hospital revoked his medical staff privileges due to racial animus. Awwad…Read More

Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Routine Use Data is now available through CMS.  In our Update indicating new SSI Ratios for Medicare DSH were published on March 16, 2012 for Fiscal Years (FYs) 2006 – 2009, we recommended that Hospitals obtain their DSH Routine Use Data in order to have the underlying data used by CMS…Read More

In an open letter published this week, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, called on the health care industry to provide solutions and suggestions on how to fight waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.  The full letter can…Read More

Sometimes having a good No-Solicitation and No-Distribution Policy is not good enough when supervisors warn about activities that aren’t covered by otherwise lawful policies.  In this case a hospital that was having problems with its incumbent union had previously established a pretty good policy.  That policy provided: “Solicitation/ Distribution.  Employees are forbidden from soliciting for…Read More

Part 2 of 2 If it survives the current legal challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court, the mandatory coverage aspect of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) will not take effect until 2014.  This timing has the effect of making hospitals tentative about capital deployment in general and for real estate in particular. Besides timing and…Read More

According to long standing NLRB doctrine, in healthcare facilities, restrictions on wearing non-official buttons and insignia in immediate patient care areas are valid. But if there is selective enforcement of the restrictions singles out union related buttons and insignia then there is a problem unless the hospital can show that the restriction was “necessary to…Read More

A Common Scenario Sometimes, as a matter of convenience, an employee may request that a portion of his or her paycheck be deducted and applied toward a debt or other obligation.  For example, the employee might ask that insurance premiums be deducted  – or charitable contributions – or the cost of purchases from the employer. …Read More

In a recent informal discussion letter, the EEOC responded to an employer’s inquiry about the application of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to health care workers’ requests for exemption from an employer-mandated flu vaccination program. In a lengthy response EEOC’s Legal Counsel, Peggy Mastroianni, references several prior EEOC publications addressing relevant legal standards. …Read More