As the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in healthcare settings rapidly evolves, state medical boards and related agencies are at the forefront of development and enforcement. While some states have taken...more
US Congress on December 20, 2024 passed a last-minute temporary government funding bill that keeps the government open for three months. As part of this package, a number of existing telehealth flexibilities were also...more
The Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Services Bill, signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom, imposes new requirements on California healthcare providers that use generative artificial intelligence tools to generate...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published its Final Rule today to implement a minimum staffing “floor” for nursing homes in the United States, as first announced on April 22. The Final Rule, which as...more
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued long awaited updates to the regulations at 42 CFR Part 2...more
The Medicare program is broken down into four parts. Part A covers the cost of healthcare items and services provided during inpatient hospital stays as well as skilled nursing facility, hospice, and some home health care....more
If you have had a loved one suffer from dementia, you know the emotional, physical, and financial toll of this terrible disease. With advancements in dementia treatment, however, there is renewed hope on addressing this...more
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Division released its annual fraud statistics on February 22, highlighted by False Claims Act (FCA) settlements and judgments exceeding $2.68 billion in fiscal year 2023. DOJ released...more
The Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program (HCFAC), an annual report jointly issued by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), can be helpful in predicting DOJ and HHS...more
Digital health—that is, medical care enhanced or made possible by the use of technology—has changed the landscape of healthcare in America. Innovation in this sector is at an all-time high and 2024 will no doubt see greater...more
The US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has implemented a final rule, effective November 13, 2023, designed to enhance the oversight of hospice providers throughout the United States and increase regulatory...more
The US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently released Advisory Opinion No. 23-07, in which OIG approved a proposed arrangement to pay employed physicians bonuses based on net...more
If your organization has faced a Medicare audit in the last decade, you may have experienced a significant delay in the Medicare appeals process due to a monumental backlog of claims pending in front of administrative law...more
Healthcare providers are scrambling to understand the impacts of the May 11 expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE). Luckily for most telehealth providers, the outlook of their operations post-PHE is...more
Key provisions that provided flexibility to long-term care providers and helped alleviate administrative burdens will expire May 11, 2023. Long-term care facilities (LTCs), skilled nursing facilities (SNF), and nursing...more
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and related public health emergency (PHE), the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued four Notifications of Enforcement Discretion (referred to as...more
COVID-19 significantly affected home-based care providers, such as home health agencies (HHAs) and hospices, whose staff had to overcome both physical and mental burdens of going into patients’ homes to deliver care,...more
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (CAA), the massive $1.7 billion spending bill signed into law on December 29, 2022, had a number of important healthcare “gems” included. A critical provision for substance use...more
Another year has come to pass, and it seems the federal Public Health Emergency (PHE) will remain in place for at least the next five months. Why? As the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has continuously...more
On October 3, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the US Department of Health and Human Services issued a report titled “UPICs Hold Promise to Enhance Program Integrity Across Medicare and Medicaid, But Challenges...more
Is the COVID-19 pandemic making you feel a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day? Although most parts of life have returned to the "new normal," the federal government remains in a seemingly endless cycle of regulatory...more
The recent increase in use of telehealth as a care modality has been important to patients and providers alike, with significant benefits for public health. However, with the growing mainstream acceptance of virtual care, the...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on July 7 released its proposed rule for the Medicare physician fee schedule for Calendar Year 2023. Among other updates, the proposed rule contains significant programmatic...more
The federal COVID-19 public health emergency’s (PHE) current expiration date is just one week away—July 14, 2022. While no official extension has been issued by the Biden-Harris administration yet, it is increasingly likely...more
Physician Partners of America LLC, a physician practice management company, denies that it violated the False Claims Act by billing Federal health care programs for medically unnecessary testing, among other allegations. The...more