Health Law Advisor

Our colleagues at Epstein Becker Green released a client alert: "Medicare's Proposed Home Health Rule for 2015: CMS Suggests Only Limited Relief to the Face-to-Face Encounter Documentation Requirements but Continued Compliance Burdens on Home Health Agencies," by Emily E. Bajcsi and Serra J. Schlanger.

Following is an excerpt:

On July 7, 2014, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS") published proposed changes to the Medicare Home Health Prospective Payment System ("HH PPS") for calendar year 2015 ("Proposed Rule"). The Proposed Rule would update the HH PPS payment ...

The Office of the Inspector General ("OIG") of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS") is soliciting comments, recommendations, and other suggestions on the non-binding criteria used by OIG in assessing whether to impose a permissive exclusion, which were first published in 1997 (https://oig.hhs.gov/authorities/docs/2014/2014-16222.pdf).  The OIG's permissive exclusion criteria currently are organized into four general categories, including: (1) the circumstances and seriousness of the underlying misconduct; (2) the defendant's response to the ...

Our colleagues at Epstein Becker Green released a client alert: "DC Circuit Strongly Reaffirms the Applicability of the Attorney-Client Privilege to Internal Compliance Investigations," by George B. Breen, Jonah D. Retzinger, Marshall E. Jackson Jr., and Stuart M. Gerson.

Following is an excerpt:

Especially in the District of Columbia Circuit, the home base for many fraud cases in which the government is opposed to health care providers and defense contractors, there had been considerable doubt that the attorney-client privilege attached to internal compliance ...

On Epstein Becker Green’s OSHA Law Update blog, Eric Conn reviews the agreement between the NLRB and OSHA, which allows employees to file out-of-date safety related whistleblower claims to be filed with the NLRB.

Following is an excerpt from the blog post:

On May 21, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) published a memorandum discussing a new agreement between NLRB and OSHA regarding a backdoor route for employees to file safety related whistleblower claims that are too stale to be filed with OSHA. The NLRB memo directs OSHA representatives to “notify all complainants ...

By Daniel C. Fundakowski

                   I.            Background

On June 6, 2014, in Foglia v. Renal Ventures Management, LLC the Third Circuit revived a dismissed False Claims Act ("FCA") lawsuit, holding that the New Jersey District Court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b) too rigorously when granting Renal's 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss.  Under Rule 9(b), an FCA whistleblower must allege "with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud or mistake."

Foglia was hired in 2007 as a registered nurse for Renal Ventures Management, a dialysis provider, and was terminated in 2008.  Foglia ...

Epstein Becker Green and EBG Advisors, as part of their Thought Leaders in Population Health Speaker Series, will host a complimentary webinar in July on emerging trends in population health. The webinar—What Role Do Patient Engagement Strategies Play in Promoting Population Health?—will examine different approaches to target, engage, and modify individual behaviors to lead a healthier lifestyle. Key thought leaders in population health will share examples of ways to engage high-risk and chronically ill groups so as to achieve meaningful clinical and financial ...

Our colleague Stuart Gerson of Epstein Becker Green has a new post on the Supreme Court's recent decisions: "Divided Supreme Court Issues Decisions on Harris and Hobby Lobby."

Following is an excerpt:

As expected, the last day of the Supreme Court's term proved to be an incendiary one with the recent spirit of Court unanimity broken by two 5-4 decisions in highly-controversial cases. The media and various interest groups already are reporting the results and, as often is the case in cause-oriented litigation, they are not entirely accurate in their analyses of either opinion.

In ...

Our colleague Stuart Gerson of Epstein Becker Green has a new post on the Supreme Court’s recent decisions: “Divided Supreme Court Issues Decisions on Harris and Hobby Lobby.”

Following is an excerpt:

As expected, the last day of the Supreme Court’s term proved to be an incendiary one with the recent spirit of Court unanimity broken by two 5-4 decisions in highly-controversial cases. The media and various interest groups already are reporting the results and, as often is the case in cause-oriented litigation, they are not entirely accurate in their analyses of either ...

By: Adam C. Abrahms, Kara M. Maciel, Steven M. Swirsky, and Mark M. Trapp

The U.S. Supreme Court today held that the US Senate was not in recess on January 4, 2012, when President Obama made three “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board under the Constitution’s Recess Appointment Clause.  In simple terms that means that the recess appointments were not proper and decisions in which the recess appointees participated were not valid.

What this now means is that hundreds of cases decided by the NLRB following the January 4, 2012 recess appointments to the Board ...

By Marisa S. Ratinoff and Amy B. Messigian

One of the main battlegrounds between employers and employees relates to the ability of employers to preclude class actions by way of arbitration agreements containing class action waivers. In California, the seminal case of Gentry v. Superior Court (“Gentry”) has had the practical effect of invalidating class action waivers in employment arbitration agreements since 2007. Gentry held that an employment class action waiver was unenforceable as a matter of California public policy if the class action waiver would “undermine the ...