Health Law Observer
Timely insights and legal commentary on various health care issues and developments surrounding regulations, employment, transactions and a range of key industry matters. This blog is maintained by the Health Care Department of Stevens & Lee.
Often times, a sticking point in negotiations is how to divide voting rights, representation and other governance/decision-making responsibilities.
Most states require that physicians provide patients with access to copies of their medical records. These obligations do not disappear upon the sale of a practice.
The WTA aims at penalizing employers who do not pay their workers wages due to them and expands the time period for bringing wage claims from two to six years.
The proposed changes are intended to support better care coordination by reducing regulatory burdens to accessing and recording addiction treatment information, while maintaining privacy safeguards.
In connection with a case involving a peer review investigation of a cardiologist, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently articulated a new standard for waiver of the attorney work product doctrine.
While, generally speaking, restrictive covenants are disfavored by the courts, these types of provisions can be used to protect assets/business interests under certain circumstances.
The new category will apply to beds in observation units located outside of or adjacent to hospital emergency department beds in units that have been identified as observation units or areas of the hospital that have been designated as observation areas.
The continued use of observation status as currently structured is a confusing, time consuming and costly problem for physicians, hospitals and patients alike.
CMS recently issued new guidance on EMTALA in the form of: 1) a Medicare Learning Network MLN publication on June 27, 2019; and 2) a Memorandum to State Survey Agency Directors re: Frequently Asked Questions on EMTALA and Psychiatric Hospitals.
A CMS official, Kimberly Brandt (Principal Deputy Administrator for Operations), recently announced that the long-anticipated proposed Stark Law changes will be issued by the end of this summer.
The new final rule is the first comprehensive update to the PACE regulations since the original final rule was published in 2006. The updates under the new final rule provide operational flexibility to PACE organizations.
Delaware hospitals’ revenue will likely be adversely affected by the initiative as it is designed to address over reliance on the most costly forms of care, such as that rendered by emergency departments.
In connection with this Guidance, CMS indicated that it wants providers to have flexibility in providing care, as long as the shared space and services will not adversely affect the health and safety of patients.
Practitioners who violate the law are subject to administrative penalties up to a maximum of $5,000 per calendar year.
On April 22, 2019, the CMS Innovation Center announced two new Medicare payment models that will launch in 2020: the Primary Care First model; and the Direct Contracting model.
We are frequently asked about the Stark Law implications of gifts, items or services that a hospital wants to give (or, in some cases, already gave) to referring physicians.