As the impact of artificial intelligence on various sectors of the U.S. economy grew in 2023, so did the involvement of regulators and policymakers. One of the most recent — and substantive — regulatory standards is the...more
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion by a 5-4 vote with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett dissenting regarding the Department of Health and Human Services Interim Final...more
1/14/2022
/ Biden Administration ,
Biden v Missouri ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Mandates ,
Healthcare Workers ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Lack of Authority ,
SCOTUS ,
Stays ,
Vaccinations ,
Workplace Safety
For the first time since 2013, on November 8, 2021, the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (“HHS-OIG” or “OIG”) made a number of significant updates to its Health Care Fraud Self-Disclosure Protocol...more
11/12/2021
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Drug Pricing ,
EMTALA ,
Healthcare Fraud ,
Kickbacks ,
OIG ,
Self-Disclosure Requirements ,
Stark Law
On Thursday, November 4, 2021, contemporaneous with the announcement of the new Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) requiring COVID-19 vaccination or testing for...more
On September 15, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a policy statement (“Statement”) addressing the scope of its Health Breach Notification Rule (“Rule”) on health apps and connected devices. The Rule, first issued...more
On May 5, 2021, Governor Ducey signed H.B. 2454, legislation which dramatically expands access to telehealth services in Arizona. The legislation—the most expansive in the country—makes telemedicine a permanent fixture of...more
On Monday April 19, 2021, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed Executive Order 2021-09 banning vaccine passports in Arizona—also known as digital health passports (“DHPs”). The Executive Order (“EO”) prevents local governments,...more
4/27/2021
/ Arizona ,
Biden Administration ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Governor Ducey ,
State Bans ,
Vaccinations ,
Vaccine Passports
On March 8, 2021, the Arizona Supreme Court held in Shepherd v. Costco1 that the plaintiff, Greg Shepherd, was permitted to bring a negligence claim for wrongful disclosure of medical information and that the Health Insurance...more
On January 14, 2021, the Department of Justice announced that it had obtained over $2.2 billion in settlements and judgments from fraud and False Claims Act cases over the previous fiscal year. More than 80 percent of False...more
Since 1945, the McCarran-Ferguson Act (Act) provided insurance companies a limited exemption from federal antitrust laws, exempting certain state-regulated activities that qualified as the “business of insurance." The Act...more
Arizona has joined the national trend of trying to solve the “problem” of “surprise medical out-of-network bills.” The prevalence of this concern was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine which stated that 22% of...more
Healthcare in the United States costs at least two to three times as much as healthcare in other developed countries. One of the reasons usually given is defensive medicine – doctors who order unnecessary tests and procedures...more
CPM is a variation of the statutory prohibition against unlicensed practice of medicine. CPM states enforce the prohibition against corporations practicing medicine by requiring a separation between medical/clinical decisions...more
In 2014, Las Vegas urologist, Dr. Michael Kaplan, was convicted by a federal jury for reusing single-use plastic needle guides during prostate biopsies. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit adulteration in violation of...more
The Physician Self-Referral Law, also known as the Stark law, prohibits a physician from referring federal health care program patients for “designated health services” to an entity in which the physician (or an immediate...more
8/8/2016
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
Patient Referrals ,
Physicians ,
Senate Finance Committee ,
Stark Law ,
Ways and Means Committee
For more than thirty years, Arizona law has allowed juries to allocate fault among all who contribute to an injury. On July 18, 2016, the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously re-affirmed Arizona’s commitment to “comparative...more
Recently, the Indiana Court of Appeals let stand a $1.4 million jury verdict against a national pharmacy chain for its employee pharmacist’s unauthorized disclosure of a customer’s confidential medical records. Given the...more
Opioids are the mostprescribed class of prescription medications in the United States. Physicians are the legal gatekeepers for prescription medications to treat chronic pain. Over the last 10 years, prescriptions for opioid...more
The New York Times recently reported that it found that the amount paid by a patient’s insurance plan for a routine colonoscopy varies significantly: between $740 and $8,500, depending upon the location, the particular...more
11/27/2013
The Patient Protection and the Affordable Health Care Act (“ACA”) is designed to reduce the cost of health care and to improve quality of care. To achieve these goals, the ACA relies, in part, on Accountable Care...more