Articles and Blogs

Congress Tackles Multiple Health Provisions This Week The standstill on progress over finalizing the remaining fiscal year 2019 spending bills has given Congress the opportunity to advance some outstanding health care measures. This week, the House of Representatives passed legislation including the ACE Kids Act to allow state Medicaid programs to use a home health…Read More

On December 11, 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced that a critical access hospital in Colorado (the “Hospital”) will settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) by paying a civil penalty of $111,400 and adopting a corrective action plan….Read More

NATIONAL US health care spending hits $3.5 trillion in 2017, but rate of growth slows CMS finalizes risk adjustment rule for benefit year 2018 4 health systems raising their minimum wage Demand for both physicians and nurse practitioners driving up compensation, study finds Report predicts shortage of nearly 30,000 doctors in geriatrics American Hospital Association…Read More

A number of organizations, including many health care and financial organizations, nationwide have reported receiving emails that state that an explosive device has been brought into the recipient’s facility and will be detonated unless a ransom is paid in Bitcoin. Law enforcement authorities are investigating; however, at this point, no explosive devices have been found….Read More

Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (“Court of Appeals”) released an opinion that confirmed a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) assessment of an immediate jeopardy citation and an $83,800 civil money penalty against a nursing home for inadequately addressing sexual interactions between cognitively impaired nursing home residents….Read More

The Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced on December 4, 2018 that a hospitalist group (“Group”) that works with hospitals and nursing homes to provide internal medicine physicians has agreed to pay $500,000 and adopt a corrective action plan to settle alleged violations of the Health Insurance Portability…Read More

On November 29, 2018, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced some significant changes to the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ’s”) policies on investigating corporate wrongdoing. These changes pull back some of the guidance that was first announced in a public memorandum issued by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates (“Yates Memo”) in 2015, especially with…Read More

Congress Passes Two-Week Stopgap Funding Measure On December 6, Congress passed a continuing resolution that extends current funding for select federal agencies for two weeks. The extension became necessary after the services for former President George H.W. Bush halted almost all legislative activity on Capitol Hill this week. Lawmakers will now have until December 21 to…Read More

The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) recently announced a notice of proposed rulemaking that would require employers seeking to file cap-subject H-1B petitions to first electronically register with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”). The proposed rule would also reverse the order that USCIS selects H-1B petitions under the H-1B cap and the advanced degree…Read More

Compliance professionals live in a world of constant change. As new laws are passed, new regulations are finalized, and public health crises emerge, compliance professionals are expected to guide their organizations through uncharted territory to the destinations chosen by other leaders. Although predicting the future is impossible, compliance priorities rarely develop in isolation. This article surveys significant compliance landmarks from 2018 to help compliance professionals plan for the…Read More