Compliance Perspectives: Healthcare Compliance at the Border
On August 13, 2024, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and its Center for Clinical Standards and Quality / Quality, Safety & Oversight Group issued its memorandum QSO-24-17-EMTALA (the “Memorandum”),...more
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced the release of updated model signage for use by Medicare-participating hospitals to inform patients of their rights under the Emergency Medical Treatment...more
Looking for compliance education and networking in your area? HCCA’s Regional Healthcare Compliance Conferences offer practitioners convenient, local compliance education that covers a wide variety of current and emerging...more
On January 30, 2023, President Biden announced that both the COVID-19 national emergency and the public health emergency (PHE) will end May 11, 2023. This announcement has left many healthcare providers considering how the...more
Rural emergency hospitals (REHs) are a new provider type that will allow Medicare to pay for emergency department and other outpatient hospital services in rural areas beginning on January 1, 2023, without requiring the...more
Beginning in 2023, Medicare will recognize a new provider type: the Rural Emergency Hospital (REH). The establishment of REHs is intended to preserve access to emergency departments and other outpatient services in rural...more
On Aug. 2, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit against the state of Idaho to block a state abortion law set to take effect on Aug. 25, claiming that it violates the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor...more
On April 15, 2022, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the denial of a California hospital’s request to obtain critical access hospital cost reimbursement from Medicare for the costs incurred to keep non-emergency specialty physicians...more
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 (EMTALA) is designed to prevent patient "dumping." It applies to all individuals coming to the emergency department (ED) of a hospital that accepts Medicare...more
CMS continues to issue revised guidance to health care providers to assist them with dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, including blanket waivers of CMS’s conditions of participation (“CoPs”). New guidance published from CMS’s...more
Even in this time of crisis, nothing has changed about a hospital’s obligation to comply with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued...more
Hospitals are the first place people look to for COVID-19 testing and treatment. Now the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has made it easier for those hospitals on the front lines. Our Health Care Group examines four...more
As the coronavirus pandemic has unfolded, hospitals across the country have begun asking how the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) will be applied to them when they are confronted with individuals coming to...more
As the number of coronavirus cases across the country continue to rise, CMS has issued several coronavirus-specific memorandums to healthcare providers and laboratories. In the past two weeks, CMS has issued disease-specific...more
Hospitals—especially rural hospitals—may want to divert inbound ambulances to other facilities, especially when the patient requires services that the hospital may be unable to provide. However, improper diversions may...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) recently released draft guidance for state survey agencies regarding shared space and co-location arrangements between hospitals and other hospitals or health care...more
On May 3, 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released long-awaited draft guidance (the “Guidance”), proposing to allow hospitals to co-locate with other hospitals or healthcare facilities in certain...more
President Trump's budget was released yesterday as the fiscal year (FY) 2020 appropriations process ramps up. The FY 2020 budget requests $87.1 billion in discretionary funding for the Health and Human Services (HHS)...more
CMS took another step in its campaign to impose "site neutrality" on hospital outpatient payments with its recently published final Medicare hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) rule for CY 2019. The final...more
• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued the Calendar Year (CY) 2019 Final Rule that updates payment rates and policy changes in the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory...more
In its final Calendar Year (CY) 2019 Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) Rule released November 2, 2018 (the Final Rule), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized its proposal to make payments for...more
The rules that govern participation in the Medicare program are notoriously voluminous and complex. Indeed, courts have described them as akin to a “[body of] law written by James Joyce and edited by E.E. Cummings” and “among...more
On August 24, 2017, the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) of the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) issued an “Early Alert” that disclosed the preliminary results of its ongoing review of abuse of Medicare...more
After 30 years as a fixture in the federal healthcare regulatory landscape, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act—more commonly known as EMTALA—has been in the news again. In the past year, the U.S. Department of...more
Following our blog post regarding the retail clinic movement, “Patient Check-Ups Before Checking Out: Partnering to Bring Health Care into the ‘One-Stop Shopping’ Sector” (April 19, 2017), we continue our examination of...more