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…

The COVID pandemic has illuminated the need to modernize professional licensing.  Although professional licensing has always been a necessary vigilance with licensing has always been appropriate, and never more so than as highlighted by the opioid epidemic and telemedicine fraud schemes when physicians could issue prescriptions and orders for services over the internet for patients…

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.

The following are just some random thoughts or curated information regarding the impact the COVID pandemic will have on privacy in general, and health information privacy in particular.

I have attached a link to information issued by HHS explaining that, not only are HHS and OCR specifically advising that the release of patient information regarding…

Attached is a PDF issued by CMS regarding blanket waivers of the Stark Law in order to allow physicians and hospitals to adjust 18 different potential financial relationships in order to deal with the COVID-19 emergency.  The waivers were issued on March 30, 2020, with a retroactive effective date of March 1, 2020.  They will…

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…

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