Health Care
November 18, 2018
A trifecta federal agency approach to expansion efforts related to health reimbursement arrangements (“HRAs”) occurred on October 29, 2018. The Departments of Treasury, Health and Human Services, and Labor (collectively, the “Departments”) jointly announced proposed HRA regulations, effective for…
Read More
By: Susan E. Ziel and Robert A. Anderson
on November 18, 2018
HIPAA, as amended by HITECH, imposes significant requirements on those persons or entities who constitute a business associate as a result of their access to protected health information in the performance of services on behalf of a covered entity.[1] For example, a business associate could be a…
Read More
By: Meghan M. Linvill McNab and Amanda K. Schipp
on November 18, 2018
On November 8, 2018, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ("CMS") published a proposed rule aimed at Medicaid managed care. CMS indicated its intentions to streamline the managed care framework and relieve regulatory burdens created in the existing managed care regulations, which were…
Read More
By: Thomas N. Hutchinson
on October 28, 2018
Governor Eric Holcomb signed Senate Enrolled Act 221 (“SEA 221”) into law on March 22, 2018, which updated INSPECT requirements for practitioners with a controlled substance registration (“CSR”) in Indiana. Notably, several of the bill’s requirements are effective January 1, 2019. Under SEA 221, all…
Read More
By: Stephanie T. Eckerle and Stacy Walton Long
on October 25, 2018
An ABC television crew was permitted to film on the premises of three Boston-area teaching hospitals, Boston Medical Center (“BMC”), Brigham and Women’s Hospital (“BWH”), and Massachusetts General Hospital (“MGH”). However, the three healthcare providers failed to first obtain patient…
Read More
By: Stephanie T. Eckerle and Susan E. Ziel
on October 8, 2018
On September 17, 2018, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services "CMS" published a proposed rule to reduce burdensome regulations affecting healthcare providers as part of its "Patients Over Paperwork" initiative which began in 2017. More information about the Patients Over Paperwork…
Read More
By: Brandon W. Shirley and Amanda K. Schipp
on October 7, 2018
On October 4, 2018, the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration published a proposed rule (“LSA #18-251”) that overhauls its Medicaid program integrity requirements. LSA #18-251 revises, clarifies, and adds new provisions affecting nearly all business aspects for Indiana Medicaid…
Read More
By: Libby Yin Goodknight and Brandon W. Shirley
on September 18, 2018
On July 10, 2018, President Trump signed an Executive Order (“EO”) that altered the manner in which Federal Administrative Law Judges (“ALJ”) are selected for service from competitive examination and competitive service selection procedures to agency appointments. The changes in the EO were…
Read More
By: Thomas N. Hutchinson
on September 18, 2018
On August 7, 2018, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued Advisory Opinion No. 18-08, which evaluated a proposal by six government-operated fire departments (the “Departments”) to enter into a mutual aid agreement to provide unscheduled, backup emergency ambulance services (“Backup Services”)…
Read More
By: Thomas N. Hutchinson and Meghan M. Linvill McNab
on August 22, 2018
As reported in CMS’s MLNConnects (click here for release), CMS recently proposed significant regulatory changes that would reduce the burden of Medicare paperwork and thereby increase the amount of time that physicians and other clinicians can spend with their patients. The proposed rules are…
Read More
By: Susan E. Ziel and Stacy Walton Long
on August 22, 2018
Whether you are the Privacy Officer, the Security Officer, or both, the question remains the same. When was the last time you scheduled a "walk through" of your work space for the sole purpose of looking into the "eyeballs" of your personnel and finding out what they are really doing (or not doing)…
Read More
By: Stephanie T. Eckerle and Meghan M. Linvill McNab
on August 22, 2018
The Joint Commission (“JC”) recently released a new Standards FAQ (“FAQ”) setting forth guidelines that should be followed when physicians or other licensed independent practitioners (“LIPs”) use documentation assistants (referred to herein as “scribes”) to assist with documentation. In the FAQ,…
Read More
|