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Health
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May 23, 2013
Pa. Rep. Pushes Bill To Track Fracking Health Effects
Following a hearing in which experts accused Pennsylvania regulators of inadequately protecting public health and the environment from the effects of Marcellus Shale drilling, organizer Rep. Greg Vitali, D-Delaware, announced Wednesday that he would push legislation expanding the responsibilities of the state's health agency.
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May 23, 2013
Target, CVS Sued For Slandering Docs, Voiding Prescriptions
Target Corp., Rite Aid Corp. and CVS Caremark Corp. were hit with a proposed class action in California state court Wednesday, accusing them of using a state Medicaid suspension list to wrongly void non-Medicaid prescriptions written by suspended doctors and slandering the doctors to patients.
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May 23, 2013
Senators Introduce Bill Limiting Medicare Audits
A legislative push to cap audits of hospitals' Medicare claims continued Wednesday, as two Senate lawmakers floated a companion bill to a House measure restricting the number of reviews by recovery audit contractors in order to ease the demand on hospitals and eliminate redundant programs.
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May 23, 2013
Uniform Contracts, Medicare Pilot Program ID'd For Cost Cuts
The government could save $2 billion by canceling an ineffective Medicare pilot program one year early and $82 million by streamlining military uniform purchases, the Government Accountability Office said in a report Wednesday that found more than two dozen areas ripe for cost cuts.
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May 22, 2013
NY Can't Dodge Judges' Suit Over Health Contribution Cuts
A New York judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss a suit challenging a state law that reduced New York's contribution to the health insurance premiums of current and retired state judges, finding the judges had sufficiently alleged that the law imposes an unconstitutional decrease in judges' compensation.
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May 22, 2013
Chem Rx Bosses Ask 2nd Circ. To Toss $106M Clawback Suit
Former principals at bankrupt Chem Rx Corp. urged the Second Circuit on Wednesday to kill a trustee lawsuit aimed at forcing them to give up $106 million they made in the pharmacy’s leveraged buyout.
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May 22, 2013
Ga. High Court Crushes Discovery Bid In Malpractice Case
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday that the plaintiff in a medical malpractice action couldn't use the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act to force WellStar Health System Inc. to turn over interview transcripts, saying they were attorney-client work product.
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May 22, 2013
Kindred Healthcare Sues Landlord Over $10.5M Default Threat
Acute-care service provider Kindred Healthcare Inc. hit real estate investment company Ventas Inc. with a suit in New York state court Tuesday claiming the REIT wrongly accused Kindred of defaulting on four leases in order to extract more than $10.5 million in fees and expenses.
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May 22, 2013
BakerHostetler Lures Ex-Kutak Rock Atty To Litigation Group
BakerHostetler has added a former Kutak Rock LLP partner specializing in employment, health care and real estate law to its litigation group, the law firm announced Wednesday.
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May 22, 2013
Fla. Health Clinic Director Gets 9 Years, $24M For Fraud
A Miami federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a former health care clinic director and licensed therapist to more than nine years in prison and a personal judgment of nearly $25 million for his role in a $63 million Medicare and Medicaid fraud case.
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May 22, 2013
Feds Seek $237M False Claims Award Against SC Hospital
The federal government said Wednesday that a South Carolina hospital system should pay $237 million — the minimum recovery after a federal jury found that it defrauded Medicare — but added it was open to a smaller settlement since the system's pockets might not be deep enough.
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May 22, 2013
DOD Pits VA Health Database Against Contractor Options
The Department of Defense will carry out a full and open competition for integrating its military health records with those managed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, rather than simply switching to the VA's system, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday.
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May 22, 2013
Temple Can’t Fight Arbitrator On Worker Rehiring, Union Says
A labor union representing a Temple University Hospital employee who was fired for sexual harassment told a Pennsylvania state judge Tuesday that the court had to honor an arbitration award reinstating the worker.
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May 22, 2013
Cigna To Pay Up To $77M In Disability Income Insurance Claims
Cigna Corp. will pay up to $77 million in re-evaluated disability income insurance claims as part of a market-conduct settlement agreement it reached with state insurance departments in California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department announced Wednesday.
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May 22, 2013
Facing Payment Cuts, Health Cos. Embrace E-Records: HHS
Half of U.S. doctors and more than three-quarters of hospitals have made meaningful use of electronic health records, federal officials said Wednesday, a surge driven by billions of dollars in public investment and threats of reduced Medicare payments for not embracing the technology.
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May 22, 2013
Coventry Pays $10M To End Suit Over Medicare Plan Setbacks
Coventry Health Care Inc. has agreed to pay $10 million to resolve a consolidated putative class action accusing the company of misleading investors over setbacks to its Medicare fee-for-service plans, according to documents filed Monday in Maryland federal court.
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May 22, 2013
Senate Panel Advances Drug Compounder Oversight Bill
A U.S. Senate committee unanimously voted Wednesday to advance legislation that places the U.S. Food and Drug Administration solely in charge of regulating compounding pharmacies and also paves the way for added drug security along the supply chain.
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May 21, 2013
New Mental Disorders Mean ADA Headaches For Employers
The latest version of the official manual used to diagnose mental disorders threatens to make the already complex task of complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act more difficult by forcing employers to figure out whether and how to accommodate newly recognized mental conditions without much guidance from courts or the government.
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May 21, 2013
Feds Oppose Settlement Behind $320M LifeCare Sale
The U.S. government asked a Delaware bankruptcy judge Tuesday to reject a deal underpinning the $320 million sale of private equity-owned LifeCare Holdings Inc., saying the proposed settlement is impermissible because it would pay the hospital group's unsecured creditors ahead of federal tax claims.
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May 21, 2013
KidsPeace Opts For Ch. 11 Amid $100M In Pension Plan Costs
KidsPeace Corp., which operates a psychiatric facility for children, filed for bankruptcy in Pennsylvania on Tuesday due to more than $100 million in pension plan obligations and rollbacks to Medicaid, its largest provider of funds, according to the nonprofit's Chapter 11 filing.
Expert Analysis
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What Sponsors Must Know About Litigation On Church Plans
Recently, two firms have filed class actions against three Catholic Church-affiliated health care facilities, claiming that their pension plans should be subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. These cases could have a profound effect on all church plan sponsors, regardless of whether they have previously obtained favorable church plan rulings, say attorneys with Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.
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The Who, What And Why Of Public-Private Partnerships
Public-private partnerships have been used in a wide range of sectors to provide public services, from power plants and railroads to hospitals and sanitation plants. Yet there are a variety of potential contractual arrangements and the financing of a PPP can be complex, say Maryam Khosharay and Herbert Glaser of Haynes and Boone LLP.
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How To Physically Secure Electronic PHI
Increasingly sophisticated threats to information security, new regulatory requirements and ramped-up enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act are prompting many health care providers and other covered entities to revisit their security policies. As these policies are revisited, physical security should undoubtedly be part of the conversation, say attorneys with Epstein Becker & Green PC.
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5 Questions To Consider When Forming An ACO
When forming an accountable care organization — a type of health care organization on the rise that aligns financial interests of providers while trying to decrease spending and increase the quality of care — health care providers should consider the five key questions, say attorneys with McGuireWoods LLP.
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E-Discovery In The Cloud: Who Can Get Your Data?
Many lawyers are asking whether placing electronically stored information in the cloud could inadvertently waive the attorney-client privilege and whether the government or a civil litigant could obtain ESI directly from a cloud service provider. In answering these questions, there are a number of aspects of the cloud worth considering, say Timothy Broas and Matthew Saxon of Winston & Strawn LLP.
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5 Reasons For Optimism In The Venture Capital Community
Not every company can be the next Facebook. But thankfully, for many startups, generating one billion users is not the end goal, nor should it be. Enter “narrowcasting” — one of a few reasons to be optimistic about venture capital, despite the first quarter of 2013 being the slowest for fundraising since 2002, says David Kaufman of Thompson Coburn LLP.
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Cloud Storage Providers May Be Subject To HIPAA
A recently issued rule by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services may unknowingly create significant liability and legal risk for many technology enterprises. A challenge under this rule is the risk that data storage providers may unknowingly receive protected health information from clients and become subject to penalties and enforcement actions, say attorneys with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC.
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A Translation Of IRS Policy On Health Insurance Issuers
The IRS recently issued proposed regulations on the $500,000 deduction limit for compensation paid by certain health insurance companies to their employees. Because these complex rules differ significantly from the more common applications of Section 162(m), a thorough analysis is required even if a company is exempt from or in compliance with the rule, say attorneys with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
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10 Things To Know About OIG's Self-Disclosure Protocol
Recently, the Office of Inspector General released an updated self-disclosure protocol by which health care providers can identify, disclose and resolve situations involving potential fraud. Providers considering the SDP program will now have more specific details to guide their submission but also face stricter requirements, say attorneys with Patton Boggs LLP.
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How HIPAA Marketing And Sale Provisions May Apply To You
In light of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's new requirements on the use of personal health information for marketing and sale purposes, it is important to note that not just covered entities but also advertisers, data aggregators, market researchers and others who want access to PHI will be impacted, say attorneys with Duane Morris LLP.