Legal developments affecting the healthcare industry.
By Peter Domas and Ralph Levy The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (the “BBA”), which was signed into law in November 2015, contains significant changes to the way the IRS will audit partnerships beginning in 2018. These changes will also have far ranging effects to the way members of many limited liability companies must prepare …
Continue reading “New IRS Audit Rules: Is Your Healthcare LLC Ready?”
By Rose Willis Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are organizations that have accepted responsibility for the overall quality, cost and care of a defined group of beneficiaries in compliance with the rules established by the federal government. Because ACOs are the product of a concept established by the federal government, some might overlook the application of …
By Wendy Hulton & Kim Ruppel In April 2013, Glens Falls Hospital admitted that the medical records for more than 2,300 of its patients were stored for several months on an unprotected computer server. The hospital’s outside records contractor, Portal Healthcare Solutions LLC (“Portal”), confirmed that it stored thousands of notes from doctors on the …
Join TechTown, University of Windsor, Canadian Technology Accelerator, Consulate General of Canada in Detroit, and We-Tech Alliance for the first ever Canada-US Health IT Innovation Summit in Detroit on Thursday, April 28, 2016 at TechTown. This event is a unique opportunity to connect American and Canadian companies in exploring new areas and avenues for innovation …
Continue reading “Canada-US Health IT Innovation Summit: Detroit”
By Craig Phillips In the last couple of weeks, numerous large health organizations, including hospitals, have been the target of malware attacks. Last night, MedStar, which operates ten hospitals in Washington, D.C. and Maryland was hit with malware and had to take all of their computer systems, including every station in every hospital offline. MedStar, …
Continue reading “Healthcare Industry Sees Increase in Malware Attacks”
By Marki Stewart In a previous post, we analyzed the new Timeshare Arrangement exception to the Stark law that CMS proposed and went into effect on January 1, 2016. Here we give an example of how the new timeshare arrangement exception works as it relates to rental of office space. Client’s Block Lease A client …
Continue reading “Analysis of New Timeshare Arrangement Exception to the Stark Law – Part 2”
By Marki Stewart On July 15, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a series of rules that would create new exceptions to the Stark law, in addition to clarifying other provisions of the Stark law. One of the newly created exceptions is for “Timeshare Arrangements.” (effective January 1, 2016). This exception …
Continue reading “Analysis of New Timeshare Arrangement Exception to the Stark Law – Part 1”
By Rose Willis The 60-Day Rule was enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010 and generally requires a person who has received an overpayment to report and return the overpayment by the later of (i) the date which is 60 days after the date on which the overpayment was identified; …
Continue reading “Physician Compliance Programs: What you need to know about the Final 60-Day Rule”
By Ralph Levy The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has traditionally paid health care providers separately for each of the individual services they furnish to beneficiaries for a single illness or course of treatment. This approach to payments rewarded a quantity versus quality of care and could result in fragmented care with minimal …
Continue reading “3 Things to Consider When Dealing with Bundled Payments to Providers”
By Rose Willis An amendment to HIPAA’s privacy rules will allow a limited subset of covered entities (such as, potentially, state agencies) to disclose information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The amendment takes effect February 5, 2016, and will be most relevant in those states that do not already require reporting …