Hooper, Kearney and Macklin on Cutting Edge Topics in the False Claims Act
Polsinelli Podcast - Health Care Payment Changes: From Service to Value
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was signed into law on July 4, 2025. A sweeping piece of legislation that reshapes healthcare financing and delivery across Medicaid, Medicare, and the insurance marketplaces, the bill...more
Congress may be on summer break, but reg season is in full swing. Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a final reg that will impact Medicare hospital payments in fiscal year (FY) 2024, which...more
Over 2500 hospitals across the country historically have relied upon Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Medicaid payments for financial stability. These DSH payments, made in large measure to hospitals with high Medicaid...more
Rural emergency hospitals (REHs) are a new provider type that will allow Medicare to pay for emergency department and other outpatient hospital services in rural areas beginning on January 1, 2023, without requiring the...more
On 26 July 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published the 2023 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System proposed rule (the OPPS Proposed...more
Beginning in 2023, Medicare will recognize a new provider type: the Rural Emergency Hospital (REH). The establishment of REHs is intended to preserve access to emergency departments and other outpatient services in rural...more
Compliance Today (March 2021) - The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has provided the following compliance notice: “In a recent report, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) determined that Medicare made...more
Report on Medicare Compliance 30, no. 2 (January 18, 2021) - CMS is taking back money from hospitals for outpatient clinic visits provided in 2019 at excepted off-campus provider-based departments (PBDs) after returning...more
Year-end COVID-19 relief legislation approved by Congress established Rural Emergency Hospitals (REHs) as a new Medicare provider type effective January 1, 2023. REHs, defined as providers that furnish certain outpatient...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia recently upheld CMS's authority to expand site-neutral payment reductions for evaluation and management (E&M) services provided at longstanding off-campus...more
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released several fact sheets on COVID-19 coverage and benefits, and announced a second Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) code, U0002, for billing COVID-19...more
In this week’s episode, Adam Cooper discusses the Supreme Court’s decision in Azar v. Allina Health Services, as well as a related memorandum issued in late 2019 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) that...more
On Thursday, February 20, 2020, hospitals represented by King & Spalding that operate excepted off-campus provided-based outpatient departments (PBDs) filed their brief in federal appeals court to preserve the victory they...more
Four separate government releases coming over a three-week period have once again highlighted the intense interest in the 340B drug pricing program, with a federal agency and two government watchdog groups issuing guidance...more
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of General Counsel (OGC) offered the healthcare industry the benefit of its legal analysis of the recent US Supreme Court opinion in Azar v. Allina Health Services...more
On October 31, 2019, the Office of General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued an important memo from Kelly M. Cleary, CMS Chief Legal Officer, and Brenna E. Jenny, Deputy General...more
The CMS proposed regulation issued on October 17, 20191 provides much needed clarity on the question of when compensation is deemed to vary with the volume or value of referrals or other business generated between the...more
n November 1, 2019, CMS posted the final rule establishing the payment rates for the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and the Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Payment System for calendar year (CY) 2020...more
In a September 17, 2019 decision, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia invalidated a CMS rule expanding site-neutral payment reductions to evaluation and management (E&M) services furnished in...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently issued a False Claims Act (FCA) decision calling into question productivity-based physician compensation structures under the Stark Law, in reliance on a controversial...more
On September 17, 2019, U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia awarded summary judgment in favor a group of more than 40 hospitals on their challenge to CMS’s decision...more
On July 10, 2019, CMS announced a new proposal for episode-based payment for radiation oncology services. The aim of this new proposal is to determine whether episode-based payment to hospitals, physician groups, and...more
The Medicare Program, established in 1965, initially seemed simple: provide health care for senior citizens by paying hospitals and doctors directly for the care the seniors required. Initially, there were two parts to...more
In a major win for providers that serve a disproportionate share of indigent patients, the Supreme Court today upheld the D.C. Circuit’s earlier decision invalidating CMS’s policy to treat beneficiaries enrolled in Part C...more
On June 3, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Azar v. Allina Health Services that the Medicare statute requires the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) to engage in public notice-and-comment rulemaking...more