Articles and Blogs

Hall Render Meets with Stark Staff on Stark Law Reform Hall Render attorneys Gregg Wallander, John Williams and Andrew Coats met with several congressional staff members this week to discuss changes to the penalty provisions of the Stark Law.  Those meetings included discussions with staff from the Senate Finance Committee, the House Ways and Means…Read More

Unemployment compensation and “Just Cause” for discharge – a really good decision for Indiana employers Today, August 31, 2012, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled in favor of an employer who had discharged an employee for poor performance.  The Indiana Department of Workforce Development had previously awarded the employee unemployment compensation because the employer had failed to…Read More

Automatic meal period deductions – A common practice Some good news for employers.  In an important victory for employers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Frye v. Baptist Memorial Hospital, recently affirmed the decision of the Western District of Tennessee to decertify a collective action brought under the FLSA challenging an…Read More

On May 30, 2012, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) announced the Partnership to Improve Dementia Care in Nursing Homes (Partnership) in order to transform the current focus of treatments and services provided to nursing home residents suffering from dementia and dementia-related illnesses. More specifically, this initiative promotes two goals: (1) resident-centered care;…Read More

This Health Law News article is Part II in a series discussing the new governance study, “Governance in Large Nonprofit Health Systems:  Current Profile and Emerging Patterns.”  Part 1 – Executive Summary was published in Hall Render’s Health Law News on August 8, 2012.  The remaining articles in this series will cover governance benchmarks, key findings and the potential significance…Read More

A common scenario – Extending health insurance coverage It is not uncommon for employers to provide continued health plan coverage for employees on non-FMLA leaves or in connection with severance packages.  However, those employers should be certain that the terms of their group health plan provide for such coverage, otherwise the employer could be liable…Read More

On August 15, 2012, the Indiana Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Curts v. Miller’s Merry Manor.  For the first time, the Court of Appeals held that nurses could be qualified as an expert witness under Indiana Evidence Rule 702 and could offer an expert opinion as to whether an alleged breach caused an…Read More

On August 16, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed down its opinion in the case of Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (No. 2010-1406) (see PDF here). At issue in this case was whether Myriad Genetics, Inc.’s claims for certain compositions of matter (isolated DNA molecules)…Read More

An order issued on July 31, 2012 by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in Gross v. Symantec Corporation found that the California Uniform Commercial Code applicable “sales” of “goods” does govern, despite the fact that the plaintiff downloaded the licensed software in question from the Internet. See 3:12-cv-00154-CRB; Document…Read More

Last month, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an unpublished opinion granting a health care maintenance organization statutory immunity under the Health Care Quality Improvement Act (“HCQIA”) after terminating a physician’s contract.  In Moore v John Deere Health Care Plan, Inc., John Deere terminated the contract of Dr. Moore after receiving numerous quality of…Read More