The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) continued its commitment to timely and full access to health records on June 24, 2024, through the finalization of its information blocking disincentives rule for...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Calendar Year (CY) 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) Final Rule on Nov. 1, 2022, which impacts Medicare Part B payments starting on Jan. 1, 2023....more
Holland & Knight Health Dose Holland & Knight Health Dose is an in-depth weekly dose of legislative and regulatory insights to keep stakeholders abreast of happenings in Washington, D.C., impacting the health sector. ...more
As the House and Senate returned from August recess, the 116th Congress remained in a political impasse with respect to what they can accomplish before they adjourn in December. Included on their list of priorities is a...more
CMS recently announced updates and milestones for several programs run by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). CMMI is the internal CMS agency responsible for developing and testing new health care payment...more
The ACO Specialist Manual is a strategic guide to getting the optimum value-add contributions from each medical specialty in integrated health care. For purposes of this Manual, the teams are generally termed accountable care...more
On March 4, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published a wide-ranging proposed rule (“Proposed Rule”) with the intent to “move the health care ecosystem in the direction of interoperability” in...more
The OIG added five new items to its Work Plan in the October 2018 update: (1) childcare provider compliance with criminal background check requirements; (2) early results from Opioid State Targeted Response Grants; (3)...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that it has several “prevailing concerns” regarding the accuracy of the 2017 Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) scoring data that was used to set...more
The OIG added six new items to its Work Plan in the July 2018 update. Areas addressed include HHS cybersecurity vulnerabilities, increased payments for transfer claims with outliers, oversight of funds for Access Increases in...more
Michael Barry and Max Reiboldt joined Mark Coker to discuss the Top 10 Lessons Learned from First-to-Second Generation Transactions. Mr. Barry is a partner in the Corporate Practice and the Healthcare Practice and focuses his...more
On July 17, 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Health ("Subcommittee") expressed its commitment to modernizing the Stark Law during a hearing in which industry and government...more
CMS recently announced that it wants to launch a new demonstration program, the Medicare Advantage Qualifying Payment Arrangement Incentive (MAQI) Demonstration. If approved and adopted as a demonstration project, the MAQI...more
In March, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) released its biannual report to Congress on matters affecting the Medicare program. MedPAC is an independent congressional agency that advises Congress on issues...more
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, commonly referred to as the “Continuing Resolution,” was recently signed into law, creating a short-term fix to funding the federal government for six weeks while also raising the debt...more
Despite some initial difficulty in gaining momentum, the use of value-based payment methodologies will likely increase across all provider niches. This change is partly a function of cost savings driven by margin compression...more
In an effort to “prevent fraud, fight identity theft, and keep taxpayer dollars safe,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is issuing new Medicare cards to Medicare enrollees beginning in April 2018. This...more
We expect 2018 to be another year of rapid change within the health care industry. In this episode, Mary Beth Johnston highlights some of the key topics that the health care practice group will monitor in the coming year,...more
The wide-reaching Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA), passed by Congress and signed by the President on February 9, 2018, extends and modifies dozens of health care programs, including extending funding for two years for...more
• Congress amended current law to prevent CMS from applying the “MIPS” payment adjustment to separately billed items like drugs and biologics, which will drastically reduce the total amount of payment adjustments to clinical...more
After a brief federal government shutdown overnight, Congress passed and the President signed into law the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 on February 9, 2018. The Senate voted 71-28 and the House voted 240-186 to approve the...more
Congress moved one step closer to avoiding a government shutdown on Feb. 6, voting overwhelmingly (245-182) to pass a short-term, GOP-backed government funding bill (text; section-by-section) that would keep the federal...more
On February 6, 2018, the House voted 242-182 to pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) to extend government funding until March 23, 2018 (H.R. Res 128). The CR includes provisions to extend funding for a number of Medicare...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is launching BPCI Advanced – the successor program to the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. Providers that like the current BPCI program, or simply missed the...more
Most physicians have, by this point, gained some familiarity with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). The name of this law has appeared frequently in commentary over the past several years, and...more