The Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission) authorized action on November 6 to block the proposed merger of two hospitals located in Huntington, West Virginia. The FTC issued an administrative complaint alleging that the transaction would create a near monopoly for general acute care inpatient hospital …
New Rule Permits Hospitals to Subsidize Physician Employees
November 9, 2015 Leave a Comment
A new 2016 Medicare physician payment rule allows hospitals and other provider institutions to make payments to physicians for the purpose of enabling them to employ nonphysician practitioners, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants. This is an exception to the general Stark Law prohibition on …
A Recap of National Health IT Week
October 12, 2015 Leave a Comment
National Health IT Week wrapped up on Friday. This may have been the most eventful week in the ten year history of the event, which is organized by the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Below are a few of the highlights (each of which could likely carry its own blog post): Stage 3 …
Health Facilities May Be Insuring Doctors without Knowing It
October 7, 2015 Leave a Comment
A September 29 ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court effectively makes a health facility liable for the professional negligence of a medical staff member who doesn’t have malpractice insurance or who has insurance that doesn’t cover the acts in question. Dr. Kaul performed a spinal fusion on Jim Jarrell at …
Ky. Ruling Casts Doubt on Health Care Arbitration Agreements
October 1, 2015 Leave a Comment
Health care institutions in Kentucky may want to take a fresh look at their patient arbitration provisions, in light of a September 24 decision by the Kentucky Supreme Court. Out-of-state institutions may want to take a look, as well. In three cases personal representatives or survivors sued nursing homes for …
Fitbit Agrees to Sign Business Associate Agreements and Take on HIPAA Compliance
September 21, 2015 Leave a Comment
Is your Fitbit data covered by HIPAA? It depends upon where you got it (kind of). If you go to the store and pick up a Fitbit on your own, the data it generates is governed by the user agreement that you click through (which I’m sure everyone read carefully). If your health plan or employer, through its …