Articles and Blogs

Rep. Boustany Introduces Bill to Allow Physician Incentive Payments Meets with Hall Render to Discuss Stark Law Reform On Wednesday, Rep. Charles Boustany, M.D. (R-LA), a retired cardiovascular surgeon, introduced the Aligning Incentives for Better Patient Care Act of 2012 (H.R. 6176), which was co-sponsored by Rep. Tom Price, M.D. (R-GA).  The bill would revise the Stark…Read More

Illegal Conduct at Work What is the right thing to do when you become aware that your employee has done something illegal at work?  Some employers may be reluctant to tell law enforcement authorities what their employee did out of fear of being sued for defamation by the employee.  A very recent case decided by the…Read More

This afternoon, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a notice updating the Medicare Hospice Wage Index with an estimated 0.9% increase in payments for FY 2013. The payment increase is the net result of a 1.6 percent increase in the hospital market basket update, which is offset by a 0.7 percentage point decrease in…Read More

In the near future, Regional Home Health Intermediaries (RHHIs) and Parts A and B Medicare Administrative Contractors (A/B MACs) will be contacting home health agencies (HHAs) that have previously submitted claims for ordered or referred services using a group name and national provider identifier (NPI).  HHAs will be informed they should begin submitting such claims…Read More

Pregnant Employee with 10 Pound Lifting Restriction – What to Do? Is it unlawful discrimination for an employer to place a pregnant part-time merchandise stocker with a 10-pound lifting restriction on an involuntary unpaid leave? In this recent case decided by the Seventh Circuit, the Court said “No“. . . there was no unlawful discrimination…Read More

Chairman Camp Tells Hall Render Stark Law Reform Still Possible This Year In a conversation held on Capitol Hill Tuesday evening, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) told Hall Render Federal Legislative and Regulatory Affairs attorney John Williams that health care fraud and abuse law reform is not completely off the table…Read More

On July 23 from 1:00 – 2:30 pm EST, National eHealth Collaborative will host Robert Anthony of the Office of E-Health Standards and Services at CMS to give tips and tricks in a second program in the series on how to achieve Meaningful Use Stage 1.  In this program, Robert will address hot topics and frequently asked…Read More

Federal regulations are an enormous morass of complex, confusing, and often contradictory rules. The 2009 Code of Federal Regulations was 163,333 pages in 226 individual books.  The 2010 Federal Register, which contains new regulations proposed rules, and presidential papers, contained an additional 81,305 pages.  Intended as a roadmap, providing guideposts and requirements for dealing with…Read More

ONC has announced accreditation of 5 certification bodies and test laboratories to certify and test Electronic Health Records technology in the ONC Permanent Certification Program.

Recently a new and unique “legal” source has been popping up in litigation. As you may know, Wikipedia is a collaborative online encyclopedia and according to a January 29, 2007, Article from The New York Times, “more than 100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, beginning in 2004, including 13 from Circuit Court of Appeals,…Read More