Health Law Advisor

By Maxine Neuhauser

It’s no secret that the business of healthcare is growing exponentially.  Health insurance coverage is expanding and with it enhanced funding for health-related initiatives. Business models continue to evolve beyond the traditional healthcare delivery systems.   Corporately managed healthcare and dental practices are growing.

Corporate wellness programs to combat rising insurance costs are increasingly in vogue. Massachusetts’s recently enacted healthcare cost containment law provides employers with a “wellness tax credit" of up to $10,000  ...

In the past few months, we’ve seen a number of federal agencies take important steps to promote telemedicine. In May, the Department of Agriculture began a $15 million grant and loan program that will provide funding to innovative rural telemedicine programs; the Veteran’s Administration, building on its already impressive telemedicine capabilities, reported in July that it will be testing a new telemedicine system designed to support rural primary care providers; and in May and June the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Center for Innovation awarded funding to a ...

by Joan A. Disler, Michelle Capezza, and Gretchen Harders

Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has upheld essentially all of the provisions of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), employers are faced with looming deadlines to bring their group health plans into compliance with the ACA’s numerous new requirements. We have prepared for employers a timeline of the highlights of the upcoming deadlines for compliance with the ACA that apply to non-grandfathered group health plans.

Click here to access a copy of the timeline (PDF).

Medical group acquisitions by hospitals will likely continue at a significant rate. Through these acquisitions, physicians can achieve efficiencies and economies of scale that may not be available to independent practices. While an acquisition offer might come as a welcome opportunity, the process involves a series of complex issues that can seem overwhelming. There are many steps that physician practices can take to help them seize opportunities and minimize issues that might delay or derail a deal.

• Preparing the Existing Entity Most doctors choose their career because they ...

by Joan A. Disler, Michelle Capezza, and Gretchen Harders 

Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has upheld essentially all of the provisions of the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act ("ACA"), employers are faced with looming deadlines to bring their group health plans into compliance with the ACA's numerous new requirements. We have prepared for employers a timeline of the highlights of the upcoming deadlines for compliance with the ACA that apply to non-grandfathered group health plans.

Click here to access a copy of the timeline (PDF).

On May 16, 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the Department of Health and Human Services (“CMS”) published regulations announcing various changes to the Medicare Conditions of Participation (“CoP”) applicable to hospitals.  According to the regulatory preamble, these revisions responded directly to the President’s “Executive Order 13563, by reducing outmoded or unnecessarily burdensome rules, and thereby increasing the ability of hospitals and [critical access hospitals] to devote resources to providing high quality patient care.”  ...

Although not the only factor, government payment reform initiatives in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are widely perceived as driving health care market consolidation.  Perhaps more significantly than mergers between hospitals, the ACA has created new interest in mergers across service lines (as reported here,  here, and here).  Hospitals, physician groups, outpatient centers, post-acute providers, and even insurance carriers are combining with each other in all sorts of ways and at an accelerating pace. Depending on who you talk to in government,  this activity is (1)  paving the ...

by Pamela Tyner

They say that everything is bigger in Texas, and the Lone Star State’s new privacy protection laws are no exception. Texas House Bill 300 (“HB 300″) amends the Texas Medical Records Privacy Act (“Texas Act”) and takes effect on September 1, 2012. HB 300 significantly expands patient privacy protections for Texas covered entities beyond those federal requirements as outlined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (“HITECH”) Act.

Read ...

I’m sure most of you know about BYOB, but do you know about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).  This is the term used when a company chooses to forgo issuing company-owned mobile computing devices (think smartphones and tablets), and encourages its employees to use their own personal mobile devices for business purposes.  And in the healthcare context, BYOD has important implications.

For better or for worse, many companies have opted to institute a BYOD policy for a number of reasons.  Here are just a few rationales for BYOD:

• Employees likely already have a smartphone or tablet or both.

They say that everything is bigger in Texas, and the Lone Star State’s new privacy protection laws are no exception.  Texas House Bill 300 ("HB 300") amends the Texas Medical Records Privacy Act ("Texas Act") and takes effect on September 1, 2012.  HB 300 significantly expands patient privacy protections for Texas covered entities beyond those federal requirements as outlined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA") and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health ("HITECH") Act by:

•revising the definition of a ...