On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 (the “Act”) into law. As is evident, barring any legal challenges that require a reconfiguration of the law, the Act will have a profound effect upon the business of medicine. By January…
The DEA recently published its Final Interim Rule regarding Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances. This Rule comes almost two years after the DEA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to revise its regulations to allow the creation, signature, transmission, and processing of controlled substance prescriptions electronically (73 FR 36722). The…
A Florida medical center sued for violations of the False Claims Act settled yesterday with the U.S. Justice Department for $12 million. The case was a result of a whistleblower lawsuit filed by the former oncology director of the provider, the Melbourne Internal Medicine Associates P.A. (MIMA). MIMA and its…
As Medicare providers and suppliers are acutely aware, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) has determined that the use of Recovery Audit Contractors (“RACs”) is a “cost-effective” way to identify and correct improper payments, in part as a result of the contingency-fee-based structure of using these auditors. Primarily…
Michigan isn’t the first state to consider a tax on healthcare providers to help fund Medicaid. As HLP previously reported, Governor Granholm is pushing again this year for a 3% tax on physician revenue. The taxes can help bring matching federal support for Medicaid, so supporters of the tax argue…
This morning, the intended purchase by Nashville-based Vanguard Health System of the Detroit Medical Center was announced via a joint press release. Vanguard’s Letter of Intent announces that it will invest $850 million into the DMC over the next five years, and promises to keep all eight of DMC’s hospitals…
HLP reported earlier this week that the failure of OCR to issue HIPAA regulations regarding the implementation of the HITECH Act was likely to lead to a delay in enforcement of the relevant provisions, though no official delay had been announced. In an update on its website on Wednesday, OCR…
On March 15, 2010, the Joint Commission announced revisions to Medical Staff Standard MS.01.01.01 (formerly known as MS.1.20). The revisions are based on the unanimous recommendations of an 18-member expert task force representing the American College of Physicians, American College of Surgeons, American Dental Association, American Hospital Association, American Medical…
Last week, the OIG released it’s Compendium of Unimplemented Recommendations that “consolidates significant unimplemented monetary and nonmonetary recommendations addressed to the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to provide information to interested parties about outstanding recommendations….” While these have not been implemented, it is something we want our clients…
While the HITECH Act technically went into effect last month, on February 17, 2010, HHS’s Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) has yet to issue guidance and regulations about the implementation of new privacy and security requirements contained in the HITECH Act. Because of this failure, OCR has been hinting that…