Podcast — Drug Pricing: How Are Payers Responding to the IRA?
Hospice Insights Podcast - A Rise in Medicare Deactivations: Tips for Avoiding This Financial Pain
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Video Podcast | Episode 187: South Carolina Hospitals and Healthcare Industry Trends with Thornton Kirby, SCHA President
A Fond Farewell: Musings on the End of the Medicare Advantage Hospice Carve-In Demonstration
Video: Braidwood v. Becerra – Challenging the Affordable Care Act’s Preventive Services Coverage Provision – Thought Leaders in Health Law
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Video Podcast | Episode 173: Improving rural health care with Dr. Kevin Bennett, the Director of the Research Center for Transforming Health and the
Medical Device Legal News with Sam Bernstein: Episode 19
Counsel That Cares - The Private Payer's Perspective on Value-Based Care
Opting Out of Medicare: When and How to Do It
Medical Device Legal News with Sam Bernstein: Episode 11
Show Me the Money: New Study Confirms Hospice Saves Money for Medicare
An Unwanted Spotlight: DOJ Announces Hospice Fraud Is Top Priority
The Chartwell Chronicles: Medicare & Medicaid
Navigating EMTALA Rules
Heed Caution: Takeaways From the OIG's Advance Care Planning Report
Podcast: The End of the Public Health Emergency – What's to Come? – Diagnosing Health Care
Patient Steering and Charting
Telehealth Risk Report: What the Government Found
Do You Have a Backup? Building Redundancies Into Your Written Certification Process
COVID-19 Hospice How-To Series | The Results Are In: More Wins for Hospices in HIS Appeals
Although most of the recent focus around the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”) by the press and industry stakeholders has been on the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, the IRA has several other...more
How could alleged kickbacks threaten to render insolvent a publicly traded company with assets (taken from its latest SEC filing) in excess of $43 billion? The answer stems from a recent decision by the United States District...more
On January 9, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Pfizer Inc.’s petition for a writ of certiorari. The denial brought the pharmaceutical company’s lawsuit challenging the breadth of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) to...more
Key Points - A new legal challenge to OIG on Medicare Beneficiaries’ ability to receive co-pay assistance has emerged. The Supreme Court has been asked to review HHS’s prohibition of co-pay assistance programs under the...more
Drug Pricing Initiatives: Discussion continues in Congress and among stakeholders of drug pricing reform measures, including those that were originally part of H.R. 5376 (the Build Back Better Act, or BBBA). ...more
Medicare premiums are rising sharply next year, cutting into the large Social Security cost-of-living increase. The basic monthly premium will jump 15.5 percent, or $21.60, from $148.50 to $170.10 a month. The Centers for...more
Alere Inc. and Alere San Diego Inc. (collectively “Alere”) have come under fire recently by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and other government agencies, agreeing to settle several rounds of accusations of False...more
On September 23, 2020, the Office of Inspector General of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) publicly released Advisory Opinion 20-05 (AO 20-05), a significant, adverse opinion rejecting a...more
On September 23, the HHS OIG published Advisory Opinion No. 20-05, advising that OIG found “highly suspect” a manufacturer’s proposal to create a copay subsidy program to help certain financially eligible Medicare...more
On September 23, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, Inc. agreed to pay $97 million to resolve claims that it illegally used a foundation as a conduit to pay the copays of...more
Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. is in the crosshairs of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on two separate matters. On August 18, the DOJ announced that it filed a lawsuit against Teva and an affiliate, Teva Neuroscience...more
Unlike much of the world, the U.S. has not turned the corner on the coronavirus outbreak. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at the markets. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 topped out at its highest level ever, “capping a remarkable...more
Two charitable foundations that helped patients pay for drug co-payments settled anti-kickback charges for $6 million. The Patient Access Network Foundation (PANF) agreed to pay $4 million and Good Days agreed to pay $2...more
CMS just released the 2020 final rule with changes to remote patient monitoring (RPM), officially titled “Chronic Care Remote Physiologic Monitoring,” reimbursed under the Medicare program, as part of the Physician Fee...more
Back in May, we wrote about substantial settlements totaling $125 million to resolve Department of Justice (DOJ) allegations that money donated by Astellas Pharma US, Inc. and Amgen Inc. to drug co-pay charities constituted...more
On September 4, 2019 the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a $15.4 million settlement with pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt ARD LLC (Mallinckrodt) to resolve alleged violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) in two...more
In a significant False Claims Act enforcement action, DOJ announced settlements with three pharmaceutical companies – Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Lundbeck, and Alexion Pharmaceuticals – under which they agreed to pay $122 million...more
You probably heard about the recent price hike for a drug critical to AIDS patients when the manufacturer sold it to an evil hedge fund manager who promptly marked it up 5,000%. This prompted Los Angeles Times columnist...more
A recent settlement by retailer Kmart Corp. illustrates the breadth of practices in the healthcare space that the government considers to be illegal kickbacks that violate the False Claims Act (FCA). The U.S. Department of...more
“You scratch my back, I scratch yours” arrangements are common in business transactions. These agreements are risky in the healthcare space, however, with the potential to implicate civil and criminal sanctions. Whether...more
The trend toward placing more Medicare beneficiaries into observation status in the hospital has come under increasing attack by patient advocates. Such patients are considered outpatients reimbursed by Medicare Part B rather...more
In recent years, copayment coupon programs have become standard promotional practices for both large and small pharmaceutical manufacturers. Copayment coupons are typically offered to commercially insured patients in order...more
Brand name drugs cost a lot. So to make them more attractive, drug manufacturers issue coupons for discounts on the copayment portion of the price. They work the same as the dollar-off coupons offered by cereal manufacturers....more
For years, many drug manufacturers have issued coupons to help cover some or all of the cost of copayments (commonly referred to as a “copay”) for prescription medications. While the Department of Health and Human Services...more