AGG’s Home Health & Hospice team publishes a quarterly newsletter covering legal and regulatory topics specific to the home and community-based healthcare industry. The fields of end-of-life and home healthcare present business and regulatory challenges that require thoughtful legal approaches and experienced counsel. AGG represents publicly traded, privately held, and tax-exempt home health and hospice companies throughout the United States. We also provide advice to lenders and investors in the home health and hospice sectors. Our clients span the broad range of home and community-based services providers, for whom we provide counsel in corporate and transactional, compliance, audit, enrollment, survey and enforcement, reimbursement, fraud and abuse, privacy, litigation, real estate, and labor and employment matters.
 
Our team includes recognized leaders in the home health and hospice sector, including a board member of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice; the immediate past-chair of the Post-Acute Care Section of the American Health Lawyers Association; former assistant United States attorneys; a former assistant regional counsel at U.S. Health and Human Services, Office of General Counsel; and the exclusion coordinator for the Office of Inspector General. Our attorneys include a physical therapist, and we also have a certified compliance officer and nurse on staff to assist with clinical, audit, and compliance issues.

In this edition, we examine the societal, legal, and ethical factors affecting patient pain management in long-term care settings. We also discuss the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s recommendation to expand hospice abuse and neglect reporting requirements to mandate reporting of all instances of suspected abuse and neglect, even those involving suspected perpetrators unaffiliated with the hospice care providers. Further, we look at new California legislation prohibiting approval of a change of ownership of a licensed hospice agency within five years of the date a license was initially issued (subject to limited exceptions). Finally, we’re excited to announce the launch of our new podcast series, “AGG Talks: Home Health & Hospice.” Available episodes include AGG team member discussions on the macro environment for deals involving care at home and an overview of the healthcare regulatory diligence performed in acquisition.

AGG Healthcare attorney Alan Horowitz published an article in the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care’s publication Caring for the Ages on societal, legal, and ethical factors compounding challenges in patient pain management. The article discusses two lawsuits—one alleging too much pain medication administered and one alleging too little—and strategies for mitigation of litigation risks.

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The US Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) has recommended that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) expand hospice abuse and neglect reporting requirements to require hospice care providers to report all instances of suspected abuse and neglect immediately—even those instances involving suspected perpetrators unaffiliated with the hospice care providers, like family members. This places a heavy burden on hospice care providers who could potentially face survey enforcement actions for issues that fall within a gray zone of abuse and neglect. 

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California has enacted new legislation prohibiting the licensing authority from approving a change of ownership of a licensed hospice agency within five years of the date a license was initially issued, though exceptions may be made in certain extenuating circumstances. 

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