Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published the new hospital outpatient and ambulatory surgical center fee schedule for 2021 on August 12, 2020 at this this link:  https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/12/2020-17086/medicare-program-hospital-outpatient-prospective-payment-and-ambulatory-surgical-center-payment As part of the proposed revisions, CMS intends to transfer over 1,500 procedures from the “inpatient only” category, including 266 musculo-skeletal procedures as of 2021, the

On June 23, 2020, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia denied the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) summary judgment motion claiming the Trump Administration had exceeded its authority and violated the First Amendment when it issued a new rule requiring greater price transparency.

The Opinion is attached in the link below.  It

Yesterday (May 13, 2020), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a 74-page “toolkit” to help nursing homes mitigate COVID-19 in their facilities.  A copy of the CMS publication can be found here:  https://www.cms.gov/files/document/covid-toolkit-states-mitigate-covid-19-nursing-homes.pdf

The toolkit provides resources dedicated to addressing the very specific challenges facing nursing homes during this crisis.  It is

Although the Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”)  has previously announced that it would exercise discretion with respect to financial arrangements entered into to facilitate and enhance the availability of COVID-19 testing, the attached Memorandum from the Office of Attorney General also indicates enhanced enforcement scrutiny with respect to fraudulent testing.

Although many believe the HIPAA rules already allow for disclosure of COVID-19 cases on the basis of a public emergency, OCR just issued Guidance, attached in the link below, confirming disclosure is permitted when needed to provide treatment, with the notification is required by law and in order to prevent or control the spread of

A vast majority of current physician employment contracts, both with larger systems and in individual practice, have some sort of productivity component for compensation, dependent upon the production of:

  • WRVUs (Work Relative Value Unit)
  • Collections
  • Net Profits

Even if there are no negotiated “resource” provisions, most contracts also have what was always thought to be