On September 9, 2024, the Department of Labor, the Department of the Treasury, and HHS (the Departments) jointly issued a final rule (the Final Rule) amending regulations implementing the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici...more
On July 26, 2024, CMS issued Change Request (CR) No. 13413 providing instructions and timelines for Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) for the processing of SSI realignment requests for cost reporting periods before...more
On July 10, 2024, CMS issued a proposed rule that identifies and seeks public comments on a broad array of proposed changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) and Medicare Part B payments (the Proposed Rule) for...more
7/22/2024
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Hospitals ,
Medicare ,
Medicare Part B ,
Mental Health ,
Opioid ,
Physician Fee Schedule ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Proposed Rules ,
Substance Abuse ,
Telehealth
On March 4, 2024, CMS issued Ruling 1498-R3 which revokes CMS Ruling 1498-R2. CMS Ruling 1498-R2 gave providers the option of using either “total” days or “covered” days in calculating their disproportionate share (DSH)...more
On December 6, 2023, HHS released a concept paper that outlines the Department’s cybersecurity strategy for the healthcare sector titled, “Healthcare Sector Cybersecurity Strategy.” HHS reports that cyber incidents in...more
On September 1, 2023, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the D.C. District Court’s decision in Pomona Valley Hosp. Med. Ctr. v. Azar, 2020 WL 5816486, at *1 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2020) requiring CMS to produce affirmative evidence as to...more
On August 18, 2023, OIG posted Advisory Opinion No. 23-05 regarding a proposed arrangement in which the requesting entity (Requestor) proposed to assist physicians who perform surgeries using intraoperative neuromonitoring...more
House Republicans have announced their intent to cut federal funding for training new pediatricians to hospitals that perform gender-affirming care on minors. The proposed bill, sponsored by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), would...more
On March 29, 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a press release announcing three related civil settlements totaling over $69 million with Covenant Healthcare System and two physicians—Dr. Mark Adams, a neurosurgeon,...more
On March 1, 2023, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published two proposed rules that would expressly authorize telemedicine prescribing of medications that are controlled substances, but only in circumstances that...more
On February 1, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced its first enforcement action under the Health Breach Notification Rule (“HBNR” or “Rule”) against GoodRx, a direct-to-consumer digital healthcare and prescription...more
2/22/2023
/ Application Programming Interface (APIs) ,
Breach Notification Rule ,
Data Privacy ,
Enforcement ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
FTC Act ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Notification Requirements ,
Popular ,
Social Security Act
On February 1, 2023, CMS published its final rule addressing the Medicare Advantage (MA) Risk Adjustment Data Validation (RADV) program. CMS uses RADV audits to identify whether Medicare made overpayments to MA plans by...more
On December 1, 2022, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a bulletin on the requirements imposed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) for online tracking technologies regarding...more
On December 1, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provided guidance on the intersection of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the use of...more
On November 1, 2022, CMS published a final rule to update the payment policies, payment rates, and other provisions for services furnished under the Medicare Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and the Ambulatory...more
11/16/2022
/ Ambulatory Surgery Centers ,
American Hospital Association et al v Becerra Secretary Of Health And Human Services et al ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Final Rules ,
Medicare ,
Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) ,
Payment Systems ,
Physician Fee Schedule ,
Public Health Emergency ,
Rural Health Care Providers ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 340B
On September 29, 2022, OIG published a report of its findings summarizing its investigation into whether Texas properly claimed uncompensated care (UC) payments (the Report). The Report by OIG found that Texas incorrectly...more
On September 2, 2022, OIG published a report of its findings summarizing its investigation into whether providers appropriately billed for Medicare beneficiaries’ telehealth services. This report analyzed data from the...more
On August 19, 2022, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury (the Departments) issued a long-awaited final rule (the Final Rule) on the Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) Process under the No...more
On July 15, 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a proposed rule to update the payment policies, payment rates, and other provisions for services furnished under the Medicare Outpatient...more
7/22/2022
/ Ambulatory Surgery Centers ,
American Hospital Association et al v Becerra Secretary Of Health And Human Services et al ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) ,
Final Rules ,
Hospitals ,
Medicare ,
Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) ,
PECOS ,
Proposed Rules ,
Public Health Emergency ,
SCOTUS ,
Stark Law
On April 18, 2022, CMS issued its annual Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Prospective Payment System Proposed Rule for FY 2023 (the Proposed Rule). In the Proposed Rule,...more
4/27/2022
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Hospitals ,
Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) ,
Long-Term Care ,
Medicare ,
Medicare Advantage ,
Payment Rates ,
Proposed Rules ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Wage Index
On March 29, 2022, the D.C. District Court granted summary judgment in favor of a group of hospitals operated by Sentara Healthcare seeking reimbursement for bad debt from Fiscal Years (FYs) 2010-2013. The court determined...more