On April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved a final rule (the “Rule”) broadly banning all employee non-compete clauses, with limited exceptions. The Saul Ewing Labor and Employment Group prepared an alert...more
4/29/2024
/ Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Facilities ,
Home Health Care ,
Hospitals ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Nonprofits ,
Physicians ,
Restrictive Covenants
In October 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) published Advisory Opinion 23-07 and approved a plan by a multi-specialty physician practice to pay its employed...more
COVID-19 – and its variants Delta and Omicron – continue to wreak havoc around the world. Thousands of individuals have died and continue to die, and millions more have been diagnosed as having COVID-19. Many sectors of the...more
2/3/2022
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Healthcare Workers ,
Home Health Care ,
Hospitals ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
Nurses ,
Physicians ,
Popular ,
Telehealth ,
Vaccinations
One year ago – in early 2020 – most of us did not know what COVID-19 meant (co-Corona; vi-Virus; d-disease; 19 – 2019); had no idea how to “zoom”; did not know what social distance meant; and, were largely unfamiliar with...more
2/18/2021
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Hospitals ,
Medicaid ,
Medical Records ,
Medicare ,
Physicians ,
Stark Law ,
Tax Reform ,
Telehealth ,
Vaccinations
In February 2020, just prior to COVID-19 dominating the news, wreaking havoc on the health care delivery system and leading to tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of positive cases, the Equal Employment...more
As many parts of the country see lower and stable incidence rates of COVID-19, medical practices are taking steps to reopen or expand clinical services within their physical offices. This guide provides practical advice for...more
As states begin the process of “reopening,” Pennsylvania and New Jersey have taken important steps that directly affect physicians. On May 9, the Pennsylvania Department of Health issued a revised guidance document for health...more
On March 28, 2020, in connection with the recently enacted Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it is expanding its accelerated and advance...more
4/8/2020
/ Accelerated Payments ,
CARES Act ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Health Care Providers ,
Hospitals ,
Medicare ,
Nursing Homes ,
Physicians ,
Public Health Emergency ,
Relief Measures
It is no surprise that the health care delivery system continues to rapidly evolve through mergers, acquisitions, affiliations and consolidations. Through these changes, an increasing number of physicians are becoming...more
On October 9, 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), each issued a proposed rule to amend respectively the...more
On November 26, 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that Allergy Associates of Hartford, P.C. (AAH) agreed to pay $125,000 to settle alleged HIPAA violations...more
Physicians, athletic trainers and other sports medicine professionals who travel to another state with an athletic team to provide medical care for that team will now have the benefit of being able to provide medical services...more
When the calendar turns to July, the new month may create excitement and anxiety for individuals: July 4th celebrations; hot weather; vacation plans; and yes, the calendar year is halfway done. For physicians, July may also...more
On June 1, 2018, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed into law the “Out-of-Network Consumer Protection, Transparency, Cost Containment and Accountability Act” (the “Act”). In the preamble to the Act, the New Jersey...more
On June 9, 2015, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) published a one-page fraud alert entitled, "Physician Compensation Arrangements May Result in Significant Liability." This is the...more
On April 16, 2015, President Obama signed into law the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 ("the Act"). The national headlines about the Act’s passage focused on the repeal of the sustainable growth rate...more
In a final rule published in the Federal Register on November 13, 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) eliminated the federal Sunshine Act reporting exclusion for payments to physicians at continuing...more
In early November 2014, the New Jersey Department of Health (DOH) sent a letter to every physician licensed by the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners (BME) regarding New Jersey’s statutory requirement that every surgical...more
On August 15, 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) re-opened the Open Payments system for physicians and teaching hospitals to register, review, and, if needed, dispute information gathered to date. CMS...more
One day after Christmas, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced that a Massachusetts-based dermatology practice (Practice) agreed to a $150,000 payment and entered into a...more
A recent federal court decision illustrates how “loan” arrangements between physicians and their employers, if not properly structured, may be treated as the payment of taxable compensation and the employers may be hit with...more
The final regulations implementing the Physician Payments Sunshine Act take effect April 9, 2013. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, group purchasing organizations, academic medical centers and physicians need to be ready to...more
Physician-owned distributorships continue to attract federal scrutiny. A new OIG Alert highlights health care transactions that make these distributorships vulnerable to enforcement activity.
...more
The OIG recently posted an Advisory Opinion which concluded that a hospital's proposal to provide free access to an electronic interface between the hospital and area physicians for laboratory and diagnostic services was not...more