Health Law Advisor

Kara M. Maciel, contributor to this blog and Member of the Firm at Epstein Becker Green, has released the "HR Guide for Responding to Natural Disasters."  Following is an excerpt:

Natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes have posed unique human resource challenges for employers. While many employers are working around the clock on recovery efforts, other employers find themselves unable to function for extended periods of time because of damage or loss of utilities.

The economic effects of a natural disaster will have long-term consequences on businesses ...

As telehealth continues to grow, there are a number of legal, regulatory, and operational issues that threaten to stall its progress.  We have tackled many of these issues in previous blog posts.  But no obstacle looms larger than the issue of payment.  How can providers get consistently and appropriately reimbursed by payers for use of telehealth?  Absent a clear answer, telehealth will likely find it difficult to fulfill its great promise—at least in the United States.  Other countries are pulling ahead.  Here is a look at the current reimbursement landscape facing providers and what ...

By Ross K. Friedberg and Ophir Stemmer

This year we’ve seen a continuation of the trend toward heightened regulation and enforcement of the privacy and security requirements under the Health Information Portability andAccountability Act (“HIPAA”) and under other state and federal health privacy laws. Although there have not been any significant changes to federal health privacy laws this year, federal enforcement activity continues to be strong.

This post provides a summary of the developments in privacy and security law throughout the past year; discusses the ...

For a physician who has spent his or her whole professional life developing and growing a medical practice, the process of selling that practice can be a traumatic experience.  Typically, the physician may focus on the short term, attempting to maximize the price at which the practice will be purchased and the applicable payment terms.  However, the long term happiness of the selling physician may depend less on the size of the purchase price at which the practice is sold, and more on how well the physician negotiates the terms and conditions of employment following the acquisition ...

In addition to the work that states are doing (or purposefully not doing) to implement State Health Insurance Exchanges for operation in 2014, states have also been given the task of choosing a benchmark plan for purposes of defining the essential health benefits (“EHB”), a minimum package of benefits that must be offered by all insurance policies sold in the small group and individual markets beginning in 2014. 

Section 1302(b) of the Affordable Care Act directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services (the “Secretary”) to define the EHB. The scope of the EHB must equal the ...

By Dale C. Van Demark

As we weather what most industry watchers (including me) have observed is a renewed wave of hospital and provider consolidation, it is likely we will continue to see failed merger attempts involving religious and non-religious hospitals. The recent failures of the hospital mergers in Waterbury, Connecticut and in the Philadelphia suburbs are just two recent examples.

The Conundrum

Many religious hospitals trace their religious affiliation to the origins of the institution, which can date back many decades.  For some religious hospitals, their very ...

Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. attorneys Jennifer Goodwin, David Matyas, and Deepa Selvam coauthored an article addressing the importance of promoting greater diversity in the health care workforce.  Read the article - "Promoting Greater Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce" - in its entirety, as published in the October 2012 issue of AHLA Connections.

by Joel Rush and Dawn Helak

All indications are that international telemedicine is well positioned for strong growth over the next several years. The global healthcare marketplace is ripe with opportunities for U.S. based healthcare systems and providers to take advantage of the expanding use of telemonitoring systems and other telemedicine technologies to deliver top flight healthcare to patients across the globe.

However, wherever there are opportunities, there are challenges. In addition to the economic and financial barriers to launching an international telemedicine ...

As we ended the summer of 2012, the Obama administration touted one of the more popular aspects of the Affordable Care Act – the requirement that health insurers spend at least 80 cents of every premium dollar on medical care and health care quality (85 cents for large employer groups purchasing health insurance), and if they do not, requiring these insurers to rebate the difference back to subscribers or their employers. According to the Administration, the “80/20 Rule” or the “Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) Rule,” as it alternately known, resulted in 12.8 million Americans ...

Over the past several weeks the National Labor Relations Board (the "Board") has come down with a series of decisions that attack the very fabric of the employee-employer relationship: at-will employment.  Then, in nothing short of a Las Vegas-style double or nothing gambit, the Board did not stop there, but instead doubled down on their offensive against employers by rendering unlawful the confidentiality requirements (pdf) that many health care employers follow in internal investigations.

Almost all employers have a provision in its employee handbook explaining that ...