On October 11, 2023 the Minnesota Supreme Court issued an opinion in Schneider v. Children’s Health Care holding that the Minnesota Health Records Act (“MHRA”) provision allowing health care providers to release health...more
The use of tracking technologies on websites and mobile applications (e.g., cookies) has become largely ubiquitous in our technology-driven world. Health care providers and organizations, for example, may use tracking...more
3/15/2023
/ Business Associates ,
Class Action ,
Consent ,
Covered Entities ,
Data Collection ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Mobile Apps ,
OCR ,
PHI ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Third-Party ,
Third-Party Risk ,
Third-Party Service Provider ,
Tracking Systems
On July 1, 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), along with other federal agencies, released an interim final rule implementing certain provisions of the No Surprises Act. The No Surprises Act aims to...more
In just two weeks, on January 19, 2021, a sweeping set of changes to the federal physician self-referral law (or “Stark Law”) and anti-kickback statute (“AKS”) regulations go into effect. These changes, which are part of the...more
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) has issued a Special Fraud Alert to highlight what it views as inherent risks associated with speaker programs that pharmaceutical and medical...more
The CARES Act allocated $100 billion in relief funds to hospitals and other healthcare providers, to be distributed by the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) through the Public Health and Social Services...more
As we described in a prior blog post, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published multiple COVID-19 Blanket Waivers for Health Care Providers. CMS announced another round of Blanket Waivers on April 30 ...more
On Mach 27, 2020, President Trump signed the CARES Act, providing in part for $100 billion in relief funds to eligible health care providers and suppliers affected by COVID-19. The funding is intended to support...more
On Monday, April 6th the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) adopted an interim final rule to change a wide range of Medicare payment policies during the COVID-19 public health emergency so that Medicare...more
On March 30, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published a compilation of COVID-19 Emergency Declaration Blanket Waivers for Health Care Providers (each, a “Blanket Waiver”). Section 1135 of the...more
With the aim of enabling providers to focus attention and resources on fighting the COVID1-19 pandemic, CMS announced over the weekend that it intends to alleviate some of Medicare participating providers’ and suppliers’...more
On March 27, 2020, the President signed into law the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act’’ (“CARES Act”). The CARES Act is the third phase of the federal government’s response to the coronavirus following two...more
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased the number of patients and providers seeking to implement and use telehealth visits and other digital health solutions – and rapidly, at that. The challenge of implementing...more
3/23/2020
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Emergency Response ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Facilities ,
Licensing Rules ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
State of Emergency ,
Telehealth ,
Telemedicine
On March 17, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”) each issued policy statements which expand access to telehealth...more
3/19/2020
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Emergency Response ,
Health Care Providers ,
Joint Policy Statements ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
OIG ,
State of Emergency ,
Telehealth ,
Telemedicine
The first publicly disclosed prosecution under the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act (“EKRA”) occurred last month, a little over a year after EKRA became law. As we described in a previous blog post, EKRA criminalizes...more
Medicare reimbursement for remote patient monitoring has taken a number of steps forward throughout this year. New and proposed rules from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services both expand the billing options...more
The Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (“OIG”) released a proposed rule to eliminate safe harbor protection under the anti-kickback statute for drug price reductions that pharmaceutical...more
2/6/2019
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Comment Period ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Drug Pricing ,
Health Care Providers ,
Manufacturers ,
MCOs ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
Medicare Part D ,
OIG ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Pharmacies ,
Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Proposed Rules ,
Rebates ,
Safe Harbors
On February 9, President Trump signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (“BBA”) into law. The BBA funds the federal government through March 23 and included a bipartisan agreement to increase annual spending authority for a...more
2/22/2018
/ ACOs ,
Bipartisan Budget Act ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Fraud and Abuse ,
Health Care Providers ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
Penalties ,
Physician Fee Schedule ,
Stark Law ,
Telehealth
In a prior blog post from September 8, 2017, we wrote about the many ways in which states are addressing the opioid crisis through legislation. One of the states we discussed was New Jersey who at the time had proposed a new...more
The Cybersecurity Act of 2015 established the Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force to respond to severe cyber-attacks within the rapidly-expanding information technology (“IT”) aspect of health care. Section 405(c)...more