A health care law Call for Articles has been announced by the West Virginia Law Review. The announcement is set forth below: Call for Articles The West Virginia Law Review announces a call for articles and invites scholars, practitioners, and researchers to submit contributions for its upcoming issue focusing on health care. This issue will […]
US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius presented the first US National Health Security Strategy (“NHSS”) in December 2009. The NHSS “is intended to galvanize efforts to minimize the health consequences associated with significant health incidents.” These incidents involve the “large-scale incidents” including terrorist attacks, hurricanes, SARS, H1N1, etc.. The NHSS presents a […]
On December 28, 2009, the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC), joined by the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the Florida ACC Chapter, the Association of Black Cardiologist, and the Cardiology Advocacy Alliance, filed a complaint, as well as motions for a preliminary injunction and expedited discovery, against Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Kathleen […]
Shortly before the holidays, Boston Scientific agreed to pay $22 million to resolve allegations that its subsidiary, Guidant, paid kickbacks to physicians to induce them to use Guidant pacemakers and defibrillators, in addition to a previous agreement to pay a $296 million fine resulting from a criminal investigation relating to defective defibrillators. On December 23, […]
Effective January 1, 2010, the 2010 Outpatient Prospective Payment System (“OPPS”) amends the prior hospital outpatient supervision requirements. Reaffirming that Medicare will only cover outpatient therapeutic services that are furnished in the hospital (“in the hospital” defined as the areas included in the main buildings of the hospital that are under financial or administrative control […]
On December 30, 2009, CMS announced a proposed rule to implement provisions of the Recovery Act that provide incentive payments for the meaningful use of certified EHR technology. The proposed rule outlines provisions governing the EHR incentive programs, including defining the central concept of “meaningful use” of EHR technology. The text of the rule can […]
Genesys Health System in Genesee County settled a claim by the U.S. Department of Justice that it violated the False Claims Act by billing Medicare at higher rates for evaluation and management services than were actually provided to cardiology patients. The fraud allegations, which were initiated by a whistleblower lawsuit, resulted in a nearly $670,000 […]
In the new 2010 physician fee schedule, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has replaced consultation codes with an increase in work relative value units (RVUs). Effective January 1, 2010, CMS will no longer recognize consultation codes that reflect various places of service (with the exception of telehealth consultation G-codes), such as inpatient […]
In a recent survey by the American College of Physician Executives, 97% of respondents–doctors and nurses–reported behavior problems between doctors and nurses. This disruptive behavior, which over 55% of respondents reported happens at least monthly, included degrading comments or insults, inappropriate joking, and refusing to speak to or work with each other. The startling prevalence […]
Those monitoring regulations effective January 1, 2010 related to CMS payment policy for teaching CRNAs involved in two (2) concurrent anesthesia cases with student nurse anesthetists were likely confused by a November 20, 2009 CMS MLN Matters article that appeared to contradict the new regulatory language and CMS Transmittal 1859. Specifically, although the federal register […]
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