Author: Alissa Smith

Alissa represents health systems, hospitals, pharmacies, long-term care providers, home health agencies and medical practices, as well as nonprofit and municipal organizations. Alissa’s transactional practice includes contracts, leases, mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. Alissa’s regulatory practice includes the interpretation and application of state and federal fraud and abuse laws, Medicare and Medicaid rules, tax-exemption laws, HIPAA and privacy laws, EMTALA laws, licensing matters, employment laws, governmental audits and open records and open meetings matters. She also assists with corporate and health system governance issues, including the revision and negotiation of medical staff bylaws.

Federal Grant and Loan “Temporary Pause” to Have a Significant Impact on the Health Care Industry

UPDATE – January 29, 2025: The Trump Administration rescinded the OMB memorandum ordering the federal grant and loan pause on January 29, 2025.   UPDATE – January 28, 2025: The federal grant and loan pause described in this blog post has been temporarily enjoined by a U.S. District Court until February 3, 2025 for funds...

ICE in your Healthcare Facility? No Need to Freeze

For over a decade, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) were instructed pursuant to official policies to refrain from conducting law enforcement actions in or near various “sensitive locations” or “protected areas,” such as healthcare facilities, schools, and churches. Exceptions existed in the policies for exigent circumstances, such as when the enforcement action...

Iowa Fetal Heartbeat Law to Go Into Effect on July 29, 2024

Iowa’s fetal heartbeat law, House File 732, which was signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds in 2023, will go into effect on Monday, July 29, 2024. This blog post gives a brief background and summary to help hospitals and providers understand their obligations under the law. The fetal heartbeat law has been temporarily enjoined...

HIPAA on the Horizon in the New Year: Important Lessons from an Active 2023 and Regulatory Initiatives to Watch for in 2024

2023 marked 20 years since the first compliance deadline under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (“HIPAA”) privacy rule. Despite the two decades of experience with HIPAA, compliance continues to remain a challenge for HIPAA-covered entities as well as for their business associates. 2023 brought a large number of important HIPAA-related developments and lessons-learned...

HHS OCR Settles HIPAA Investigation with Business Associate for $350,000

Over the past decade, the number of health care data breaches reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) has increased dramatically. From 2009 to 2022, over 5,000 data breaches affecting 500 or more records were reported to OCR, accounting for the exposure of over 380 million health...

Covid-19 Requirements for Healthcare Employers: A Recap of Where Things Stand

There is a lot going on right now for healthcare employers.  The first phase of CMS’s vaccine mandate is in full effect nationwide (now including Texas), the CDC has changed masking guidance in some circumstances, and it has been two months since OSHA let the Health Care Emergency Temporary Standard expire.  To help you navigate...

U.S. Supreme Court Lifts Injunction Against CMS’ Health Care Facility Vaccine Mandate: What Does This Mean for Your Health Care Facility?

Health care employers are not alone in feeling overwhelmed by the constantly changing legal status of the various federal vaccine mandates.  On Thursday afternoon, the Supreme Court made its rulings on two preliminary challenges to workplace mandates related to the COVID-19 pandemic: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for large...

Limited Preliminary Injunction Issued for CMS Vaccine Mandate

On November 29, 2021, a federal court in Missouri enjoined the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) vaccine mandate in the following states: Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.  Those ten states filed a lawsuit on November 10, 2021, challenging the vaccine mandate and requesting a...

CMS’ COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate: What Health Care Providers and Suppliers Need to Know

**Note that a federal court has issued a temporary injunction stopping the CMS COVID-19 vaccine mandate in certain states.  Please read our blog post here for the latest information on this injunction. Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published their much-anticipated rules mandating...