The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) contains several provisions aimed to reduce fraud and abuse in home health and Durable Medical Equipment (DME) programs, which CMS and OIG consider to be high risk programs. Effective July 1, 2010, physicians who order covered home health or DME services must be enrolled in Medicare (§ 6405). …

Contributed by Piyush Seth

As of April 5, 2010 US Citizenship and Immigration Services reported that only 6,791 of the 65,000 "regular" cap  and only 2,734 of the 20,000 advance degree cap petitions had been received.  Click AILA for more information.

In previous years the 65,000 H-1B cap has been reached within the first week of…

Contributed by Lee Kim, Esquire

The American Medical Association has posted HIPAA Security Rule guidance for physicians.  It recommends that electronic protected health information ("ePHI") should be encrypted and suggests that AES technology should be used (as a more secure alternative to RSA technology).  Both data at rest (e.g., files which reside on your hard drive…

Section 6003 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which is the 2010 Healthcare Reform Act, imposes a new disclosure requirement for in office ancillary service referrals of imaging services.  Section 6003 requires that referrals of MRI, CT, PET, and other designated health services as specified by the secretary, must be accompanied…

Contributed by Albert Lee & Katherine Koop

alee@tuckerlaw.com, kkoop@tuckerlaw.com

Graduating from medical school, joining a practice and staying until retirement rarely happens these days. (Although nationwide physician turnover rates have been on the decline, from 6.7% in 2006 to 6.1% in 2008, some estimate that 40% of newly practicing physicians leave their initial practice …

Medicare Explains Timely Filing Requirements for Medicare Fee-For-Service Claims

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which amended the time period for filing Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) claims as one of many provisions aimed at curbing fraud, waste, and abuse in the Medicare program.   

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Contributed by Lee Kim, Esquire

lkim@tuckerlaw.com, 412.594.3915

The mention of the HIPAA security rules often provokes an irrational fear in people who are not so technically inclined, but there is a difference between knowing the legal compliance requirements and being an information technology specialist. Here is a simple summary of your security obligations and…

Cases with opposing interpretations on this issue were decided within the past month. Heretofore, the basic question had been whether medical staff bylaws constituted contracts under state law. The majority of courts deciding these cases have concluded that medical staff bylaws were valid contracts. In the states with the opposite holdings, the basic theory was that bylaws merely…

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Tucker Arensberg’s Healthcare Practice Group includes some of the most experienced health law attorneys in the region. We handle the legal problems so our clients can handle the important work of caring for patients. We work with physicians, physical therapists, dentists, optometrists, and all other professional care givers to help them avoid the many legal traps of running a practice. Tucker Arensberg lawyers have experience in all major health law issues.