Articles and Blogs

Mercy Health (MO) is the latest health care company to take over vacant Walmart Health locations. Mercy has reopened three Walmart Health locations in Fort Smith, Rogers and Springdale, Arkansas. In April 2024, Walmart announced that it would close all 51 of its health clinics and shut down its virtual care platform. Hancock Health (IN)…Read More

Recent proposed legislation and an executive order in Indiana would introduce new requirements for nonprofit hospitals and update the statutory definition of “community benefits” for hospitals. On January 21, 2025, Indiana Governor Mike Braun issued an executive order directing the state Secretary of Health and Family Services to conduct an investigation and prepare a report…Read More

In the opening days of his second term, President Donald Trump signed a number of executive orders covering a wide swath of public and private activity. One such executive order (the “Order”), entitled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” addresses diversity, equity and inclusion (“DEI”) programs in the federal government, as well as DEI…Read More

Before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA” or “Agency”) halted communications with the industry after the Presidential Inauguration on January 20, 2025, the Agency issued a final guidance for firms in the medical products industry titled,  “Communications From Firms to Health Care Providers Regarding Scientific Information on Unapproved Uses of Approved/Cleared Medical Products: Questions…Read More

Health care continues to drive private equity (“PE”) activity, creating opportunities for investors and traditional health care providers. Transactions in the health care space are especially complicated, layering health care regulatory and reimbursement considerations on top of a complex securities, antitrust, privacy and security framework. Hall Render’s PE team of attorneys and advisors leverage the…Read More

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) is reinforcing its emphasis on hospice quality of care and identifying fraud. On November 13, 2024, CMS issued a QSO Memo, “Ensuring Consistency in the Hospice Survey Process to Identify Quality of Care Concerns and Potential Fraud Referrals” (the “CMS Memo”), addressing the importance of consistency in the…Read More

On January 14, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) published its Second Interim Staff Report (“Report”) on pharmacy benefit managers (“PBMs”), focusing on PBM pricing practices for specialty generic drugs. The Report described significant markups of cancer, HIV and other chronic condition specialty drugs and high reimbursement rates paid by Caremark Rx, Express Scripts and OptumRx…Read More

The United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) recently settled part of a qui tam lawsuit under the False Claims Act for alleged violations of the Medicare “14-Day Rule” for $388,667. From March 2012 to November 2023, a laboratory and health system allegedly delayed submitting physician orders for certain laboratory testing until 14 days after patients’ hospital discharge…Read More