On September 6, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued OIG Advisory Opinion No. 19-05 (Advisory Opinion) permitting a community health center (Requestor) to...more
9/17/2019
/ Advisory Opinions ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Exclusions ,
Federal Funding ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Clinics ,
HRSA ,
Medicare ,
OIG ,
Reimbursements
On June 24, 2019, President Donald Trump issued an “Executive Order on Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First” (the Order). The Order requires multiple federal agencies to issue...more
7/8/2019
/ Comment Period ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance ,
Surprise Medical Bills ,
Transparency ,
Trump Administration ,
U.S. Treasury
In some instances in which a company finds itself in the cross-hairs of a patent infringement cease-and-desist letter or lawsuit, a license may not be a viable option. That is often the case when the patent holder is a...more
On April 22, 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced two new voluntary risk-sharing payment models—Professional Population-Based Payment (PBP) and Global PBP. ...more
Connecticut’s Superior Court Stamford recently ruled to modify four physician non-compete agreements into compliance with Connecticut’s physician non-compete statute (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 20-14p), which limits certain covenants...more
FIRRMA Pilot Program Puts Critical Technology in the Spotlight -
On November 10, 2018, the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) will begin a pilot program that will implement certain...more
On November 16, 2018, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) posted an unfavorable Advisory Opinion No. 18-14 regarding an arrangement where a vendor (Requestor) of a commonly...more
On October 18, 2018, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services published a favorable Advisory Opinion regarding a Medicaid managed care organization’s (Requestor) proposal to pay...more
There has been a recent surge of lawsuits and demand letters alleging company websites are violating the Americans with Disability Act (the “ADA”). In the first six months of 2018, there were at least 1,053 lawsuits alleging...more
10/1/2018
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Disability Discrimination ,
DMCA ,
Product Labels ,
Proposition 65 ,
Public Accommodation ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Safe Harbors ,
Title III ,
Warning Labels ,
Website Accessibility ,
Website Owner Liability ,
Websites
In the past several months, cryptocurrencies have been all over the news with the meteoric rise in the value of Bitcoin up to $20,000. At its peak in early January 2018, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies...more
5/21/2018
/ CFTC ,
Commodities ,
Copyright ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Health Information Technologies ,
Information Technology ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Ownership of Works ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Regulatory Standards
On April 5, 2018, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) announced its findings that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) paid practitioners for telehealth services that did not meet Medicare requirements....more
Patent infringement defendants have been enjoying a good ride for some time now. The Supreme Court, with decisions like Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, have for the most part raised the barriers for patentees and...more
On December 28, 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a memo to state survey agency directors clarifying its position on the use of text messaging among health care providers. ...more
Effective January 3, 2018, The Joint Commission (TJC) has revised its standards to no longer require TJC-accredited hospitals, critical access hospitals, and ambulatory care organizations to credential and privilege...more
CMS recently announced updates to its Hospital Compare website. CMS provides the Hospital Compare website to give patients, their families and other health care stakeholders information on the performance of hospitals...more
If you own trademark registrations in the United States, you are required to make certain filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to keep your trademark registration(s) alive. In particular, prior to the sixth...more
12/5/2017
/ Abstract Ideas ,
Filing Deadlines ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legal Fees ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Trolls ,
Patents ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO
On November 28, 2017, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) rescinded advisory opinion 06-04, in which it had previously determined that a charity’s (Requestor) proposal to provide assistance to financially needy Medicare...more
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced the withdrawal of three proposed rules that, in one case, had been pending since 2014. The first proposed rule that CMS decided to scrap was proposed in...more
10/4/2017
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Equal Protection ,
Health Insurance ,
Healthcare Facilities ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
Medicare Part B ,
Obergefell v. Hodges ,
Proposed Rules ,
Same-Sex Marriage ,
US v Windsor
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published a proposed rule (Proposed Rule) to scale back its mandatory bundled payment programs. Under the Proposed Rule, CMS would cancel the episode payment...more
Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy recently signed into law Public Act 17-241 (PA 17-241), which contains provisions concerning facility fees, the sending and receiving of electronic health records between hospitals and...more
On June 30, 2017, Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy signed into law An Act Preventing Prescription Opioid Diversion and Abuse (Public Act No. 17-131). This legislation addresses opioid drug abuse in Connecticut by...more
The Joint Commission (TJC) recently released new and revised pain assessment and management standards and elements of performance for its hospital accreditation program. These standards, effective January 1, 2018, follow an...more
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently issued a favorable advisory opinion (Advisory Opinion) to a university health system (Requestor) regarding two arrangements: (1) a proposal to waive cost-sharing obligations of...more
On December 7, 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a long-awaited final rule (Final Rule) that expands the safe harbor regulations under the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS)...more
12/20/2016
/ Ambulance Providers ,
Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
OIG ,
Remuneration ,
Rural Areas ,
Safe Harbors
On October 14, 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a final rule with comment period (Final Rule) implementing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). The Final Rule...more
10/28/2016
/ Alternative Payment Models (APM) ,
CEHRT ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
Medicare ,
Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization (MACRA) ,
MIPS ,
Physician Medicare Reimbursements ,
Physicians ,
PQRS ,
Quality Payment Program (QPP) ,
Rural Health Care Providers ,
Value-Based Payments