Since 1976, our litigators have effectively and efficiently represented clients in federal and state courts in business litigation, municipal law, employment law, personal injury and a variety of complex litigation.
Since 1976, our litigators have effectively and efficiently represented clients in federal and state courts in business litigation, municipal law, employment law, personal injury and a variety of complex litigation.
Since 1976, our litigators have effectively and efficiently represented clients in federal and state courts in business litigation, municipal law, employment law, personal injury and a variety of complex litigation.
As a part of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" a civil penalty structure was put in place for Health Insurace Portability and Asccountability Act (HIPAA) violations.
Our experience uniquely qualifies us to advise in governmental issues: Annexation, Associations/Non-Profits, Cities, Towns, & Counties, Colleges & Universities, Economic Development, Elections and more.
We provide legal advice for businesses in the following areas: Agribusiness Energy, Diversified Businesses, Emerging Businesses, Federal & State Tax, Finance, and more.
Probate is the court procedure by which a decedent’s property is administered for the purpose of passing ownership of assets remaining in the decedent’s name at his/her death.
Since 1976, our litigators have effectively and efficiently represented clients in federal and state courts in business litigation, municipal law, employment law, personal injury and a variety of complex litigation.
We have previously written about the federal statute that requires CMS Administrative Law Judges to hear and render a decision within 90 days after a timely request. We have also written that CMS instead takes years to rule on appeals and courts have refused to take action against CMS.
The ignoring of the 90 day requirement has created substantial problems. Medicare appeals may take from 3-5 years to reach a decision.
AETNA decided it would require HIV patients to obtain their medications by mail. AETNA insureds objected to this for a number of reasons including that the policy would compromise their privacy because the HIV medications are delivered in special refrigerated packages. AETNA insureds sued and AETNA agreed to a settlement allowing its insureds to continue obtaining their prescriptions at local pharmacies. In essence AETNA rescinded its new policy.
CMS has clarified that texting may not be used to place patient orders for medication or tests on any platform. It does not matter whether the platform is secure or not. Texting is now not allowed when treating Medicare and Medicaid patients. Therefore texting of orders by physicians on Medicare or Medicaid patients is simply no longer allowable.
An employee is gone. Fired or voluntarily. What next? OCR recently posted a bulletin called “Insider Threats and Termination Procedures” reminding the healthcare industry of the recurring risks of terminated employees in accessing or revealing PHI or other important data.
In summary, OCR reminds us all that good procedures following the termination of an employee include:
Both in-house and outside counsel are often called to lead or assist with internal investigations at hospitals or in physician groups. These necessary investigations need to be handled with care.
Physicians have long been employees of hospital systems and have long been independent contractors with hospital systems. Doctor practice groups exist now and have for some time providing contracted specialty work to hospitals.
We routinely receive requests from physicians and hospitals for information about texting or emailing with patients.
Texting can be an excellent way to remind patients of appointments, for examinations and for tests. It can also be used to encourage compliance with certain medications.
When a ‘law enforcement’ person demands that a provider disclose PHI, what should you do? If you have a signed authorization from the individuals whose PHI is being demanded and it expressly allows disclosure to the specific law enforcement requesting the PHI then go ahead.
A draft unedited article was attached to the end of our last issue. We apologize for the technical error and present the proper and edited version as our first article in this issue.
Dr. Richard Paulus was charged by the United States under the Federal Claims Act (FCA) for a pattern of fraudulent conduct involving inserting stents in patients’ arteries. The basic claim of the US was that Dr. Paulus falsely recorded stenosis as at least 70% for certain patients in order to justify the insertion of stents. US claimed that these entries of the percent level of stenosis were fictitious statements.
The original anti-kickback statute (AKS) was passed in the early 70s to protect the Medicare and Medicaid programs. In general, AKS prohibits any provider from receiving any remuneration in connection with the furnishing of the provider’s services. The (money or benefit) statute has been amended a number of times since its creation to increase criminal penalties and to broaden certain definitions relating to kickbacks and bribes.
E-Clinical Works is a company with projected 2016 revenues of over $440 million. E-Clinical claims that it is a leading EHR vendor. E-Clinical just agreed to pay, with several of its executives, a $155 million penalty to the federal government for claims that it falsely obtained certification for meaningful use EHR and encouraged users of its EHR software to obtain wrongful, meaningful use certification.
