In light of recent civil unrest within the United States, which has been accompanied by incidents of property damage and large crowd actions, hospitals and healthcare facilities should consider reviewing and ensuring that...more
On April 28, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued Frequently Asked Questions for Hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals regarding EMTALA (FAQs) as a supplement to the memorandum on the Emergency...more
On April 21, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued Quality, Safety & Oversight memorandum QSO-20-27-Hospital (QSO Memo), addressed to state survey agencies to provide guidance to independent...more
As the United States came to grips with the far-reaching impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in March 2020, many state governments put in place executive orders or other public health decrees (collectively, orders)...more
4/26/2020
/ CARES Act ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Federal Loans ,
Financial Stimulus ,
Health Care Providers ,
Hospitals ,
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) ,
Re-Opening Guidelines ,
Small Business ,
Social Distancing ,
Trump Administration
On March 30, 2020, CMS issued QSO-20-15-REVISED, which updated and expanded the guidance provided in its original QSO-20-15 memorandum issued March 9, 2020, as further described in the On the Subject appended below....more
On April 3, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued Quality, Safety & Oversight memorandum QSO-20-24-ASC (the QSO Memo), addressed to state survey agencies to provide guidance on processing attestation...more
On March 30, 2020, CMS issued updates to its prior QSO memorandum, expanding its infection control and prevention guidance to include hospitals, critical access hospitals and psychiatric hospitals. The updated QSO memorandum...more
4/1/2020
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Hospitals ,
Medicare ,
Mental Health ,
OCR ,
Psychiatric Hospitals ,
Public Access Laws ,
Public Health ,
Quarantine ,
Relief Measures ,
Telemedicine ,
Waivers
On March 30, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a Quality, Safety & Oversight Group (QSO) memorandum (QSO-20-22-ASC, CORF, CMHC, OPT, RHC/FQHCs) addressing standards for infection control and...more
4/1/2020
/ Ambulatory Surgery Centers ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Community Care Program ,
Community Health Systems ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Clinics ,
Healthcare Facilities ,
Hospitals ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
Outpatient Services ,
Quality Assurance Programs
Healthcare providers facing emergency requests from government agencies in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis — including critical issues such as transfers of COVID-19 patients, opening closed facilities and...more
4/1/2020
/ Best Practices ,
Business Continuity Plans ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Crisis Management ,
Emergency Management Plans ,
Health and Safety ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Facilities ,
Hospitals ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Public Health ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Risk Management ,
Workplace Safety
In response to the spread of COVID-19 infections and questions from the provider community, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality, Safety and Oversight Group (QSO) issued a series of three memoranda...more
CMS's final rule requires that CMS-regulated payors implement APIs that allow patient information to be shared more readily among patients, health care providers and payors. It also imposes a new Medicare condition of...more
As more cases emerge highlighting the transmission of COVID-19 from person-to-person contact in the general public rather than through contact with a known infected individual, hospitals and health systems must be ready to...more
Hospitals and health systems are facing consumer demand for innovation, the need to expand and enhance streams of revenue and the push for improved quality, all while navigating changing regulations, federal enforcement,...more
2/6/2020
/ Antitrust Litigation ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
CMIA ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cybersecurity ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Hospitals ,
Medicare ,
No-Poaching ,
OCR ,
Popular ,
Ransomware
The application of EMTALA to psychiatric hospitals has long presented compliance concerns for psychiatric hospital providers. To provide clarity, the CMS recently released two memos that offer incremental additional guidance....more
7/8/2019
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
EMTALA ,
Health and Safety ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
Hospitals ,
New Guidance ,
OCR ,
Patient Rights ,
Patient Safety ,
Psychiatric Hospitals
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has issued long-awaited draft guidance addressing the use of shared space and contracted services. Though aiming to increase transparency into the scope and interpretation of its...more
The Illinois General Assembly recently passed the Health Care Violence Prevention Act to combat the violence that regularly occurs against health care workers in nearly all care settings. Sandra M. DiVarco summarizes new...more
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released guidance on September 6, 2017, intended to clarify the definition of “hospital.” The guidance provides factors that may be considered to determine whether a hospital is...more
The 2018 IPPS/LTCH PPS proposed rule contained a provision that would have required AOs to make survey reports and acceptable plans of correction publicly available within approximately three months of issuance. The Final...more
On June 23, 2017, the Illinois register will publish a number of significant amendments to the rules and regulations promulgated under the Illinois Hospital Licensing Act (the Act), at 77 Ill. Admin. Code § 250 et seq. These...more
On December 19, 2016, the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) posted a report examining the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’s) “2-Midnight Rule.” The OIG concluded that...more
McDermott’s Managing the Transition to Transformation series is designed to help health systems and other health care industry leaders address the many challenges presented by the transformation in payment and care delivery...more
9/29/2016
/ Alternative Payment Models (APM) ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) ,
Federal Health Care Programs (FHCP) ,
Fee-for-Service ,
Health Care Providers ,
Hospitals ,
IMPACT Act ,
Medicare ,
Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization (MACRA) ,
Physicians
On October 30, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its final rule updating the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System for...more
On October 28, 2015, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that, if enacted, would, among other things, substantially alter how and how much Medicare pays for outpatient services furnished by hospitals. The...more
10/30/2015
/ Ambulatory Surgery Centers ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Debt Ceiling ,
Federal Budget ,
Generic Drugs ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
Hospitals ,
HRSA ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
Medicare Part B ,
OPPS ,
Pending Legislation ,
Physician Fee Schedule ,
Physicians ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Rebates ,
Section 340B ,
Sequestration
On July 1, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released proposed updates to the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System for Calendar Year...more
7/8/2015
/ Ambulatory Surgery Centers ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Hospitals ,
Inpatient Billing ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
Medicare Administrative Contractors (MAC) ,
Medicare Part A ,
OPPS ,
Physicians ,
Proposed Regulation ,
Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs) ,
Two-Midnight Rule
The onset of active Ebola infections in the U.S. places hospitals and health care facilities in somewhat “uncharted waters” regarding their respective legal risks related to clinical care and the clinicians providing that...more