Category: General

CMS Finalizes Changes to the Stark Advisory Opinion Regulations; 2020 DHS Code List and CPI-U Updates

In the calendar year 2020 Medicare physician fee schedule final rule (“PFS”), which was published in the Federal Register on November 15, 2019 (available here), CMS finalized changes to the advisory opinion process under the federal physician self-referral law (“Stark Law” or “Stark”).  CMS also published its annual update to CPT/HCPCS codes used to identify...

California Attorney General Issues Draft Regulations for CCPA

The Dorsey Health Law blog team keeps readers up-to-date on relevant topics in the health care industry. In order to do so, the members of the blog team communicate regularly with other practice groups within the firm for applicable updates from client publications. For this post, we would like to thank Dorsey’s Joseph Lynyak, Robert...

A Massive Number of New Health Law Regulatory Proposals as Part of the “Regulatory Sprint to Coordinated Care”: Proposed Changes to the Stark Law, Anti-Kickback Statute, Beneficiary Inducement CMP, Privacy Laws Governing Substance Use Disorder Records, and the Stark Law Advisory Opinion Process

Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) each released their long-anticipated proposed rules to revise the federal self-referral law (or “Stark Law”) regulations, the safe harbors under the federal anti-kickback statute (AKS), and the civil monetary penalty law (CMP)...

CCPA Compliance Screening and Assessment Tools–Now Available

From Robert Cattachach, a Dorsey Partner with our Regulatory Affairs Group: I am pleased to announce that Dorsey has launched web-based CCPA Screening and Assessment Tools to help organizations in preparing for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which goes into effect on January 1, 2020. Companies can determine whether the CCPA will apply to...

The Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018 (EKRA): A New Federal Kickback Law Applicable to All Payors

The Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018 (EKRA) became law on October 24, 2018, and is codified at 18 U.S.C. § 220.  As part of the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Act, EKRA was enacted in response to a concern that the federal Anti-Kickback Statute...

Q&A: Financial Restructuring and Healthcare Providers

Any casual reader of healthcare news in recent years has taken note of the upheaval and financial uncertainty facing healthcare providers. Take for example a recent Bloomberg story detailing the closure of Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia – “Philadelphia Hospital Collapse Highlights Healthcare ‘Anarchy’”. Anarchy or not, closures, consolidations, and financial restructuring are all too...

New Transportation Model Creates Value-Based Care Payment Opportunities for Ambulance Providers and Suppliers

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (“CMS Innovation Center”) issued a press release on February 14, 2019, announcing the Emergency Triage, Treat, and Transport Model (the “ET3”). The ET3 is a five-year payment model that will test two new Medicare ambulance supplier and provider payments for: Treatment...

Getting Ready for Open Payments

Today, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released additional tips regarding submitting Open Payments data.[1] A quick refresher: Submitting data through CMS’s application, Open Payments, is the means to fulfill the Sunshine Act, a federal regulatory requirement that applicable manufacturers, group purchasing organizations (“GPOs”), and health care providers disclose: a) certain transfers of...