We’ve been talking about telehealth and mental health this week. Here’s both combined in one interesting and highly valued announcement today, followed by several tests – well, 3 million COVID tests a week to be exact, and, speaking of Exact Sciences, developments in the early detection tests for the other major disease that is most feared, cancer.
Continue Reading Day Three Notes for the 39th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, 2021
It’s Day 2 of the J.P. Morgan Annual Healthcare Conference at its finest – looking closely at healthcare inequities, strategic business shifts and killer robots, all in the same day! (Yes, we did say killer robots and it’s your reward for reading all the way to the end of this article).
Continue Reading Day 2 Notes for the 39th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, 2021
Sitting in the dark before 6 am in my Los Angeles house with my face lit up by yet another Zoom screen, wearing a stylish combination of sweatpants, dress shirt and last year’s JPM conference badge dangling around my neck for old times’ sake, I wonder at the fact that it’s J.P. Morgan Annual Healthcare Conference week again and we are where we are. Quite a year for all of us – the pandemic, the healthcare system’s response to the public health emergency, the ongoing fight for racial justice, the elections, the storming of the Capital – and the subject of healthcare winds its way through all of it – public health, our healthcare system’s stability, strengths and weaknesses, the highly noticeable healthcare inequities, the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and vaccines, healthcare politics and what the new administration will bring as healthcare initiatives.
Continue Reading Day 1 Notes for the 39th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, 2021
On April 1, 2021, the California Department of Health Care Services (“DHCS”) will be transitioning all Medi-Cal pharmacy benefits from managed care to fee-for-service (“FFS”). This
Continue Reading Medi-Cal Rx: California to Transition Medi-Cal Pharmacy Benefits to Fee-For-Service
On December 11, 2020, five hospital groups, including the American Hospital Association (“AHA”), and an organization of hospital pharmacists representing participants in the 340B drug pricing program (“340B Program”), filed a federal lawsuit (the “340B Program Litigation”) against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) over HHS’ alleged failure to enforce 340B Program requirements that obligate pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide 340B Program prescription drug discounts to pharmacies contracted by 340B Program-participating hospitals to dispense 340B Program drugs.[1]
Continue Reading Contract Pharmacies and the 340B Drug Discount Program: New Litigation and an Advisory Opinion Point to Ongoing Skirmishes on the 340B Battlefield
On December 28, 2020, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (“Appropriations Act”) was passed into law. The Appropriations Act included the No Surprises Act (“Act”), which seeks to protect patients from surprise medical bills in situations where patients have little or no control over who provides their care, including nonemergency services provided by out-of-network providers at in-network facilities, emergency services provided by out-of-network providers and facilities, and air ambulance services. The Act, a rare piece of bipartisan, bicameral legislation, has been a long time in the making, and has undergone multiple iterations. Particularly during the public health emergency, the issue of surprise medical bills is especially pertinent, as the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the occurrence of surprise bills in a time where people are less likely to be able to shoulder the unexpected costs.
Continue Reading No Surprises Act Comes as a Surprise – Consolidated Appropriations Act Includes New Restrictions on Surprise Bills
In our December 7, 2020 Blog Post, “Permanent Expansion of Medicare Telehealth Services,” we discussed the 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule (the “Final Rule”) and the regulatory changes made therein by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) to expand Medicare telehealth coverage within the confines of existing Medicare statutory law. The Final Rule was first posted on December 2, 2020 and was formally published in the Federal Register on December 28, 2020.
Continue Reading The Permanency for Audio-Only Telehealth Act: A Matter of Healthcare Equity?
In our November 25, 2000 Healthcare Law Blog article, “Big Changes for Health Care Fraud and Abuse: HHS Gifts Providers Updates to the Stark Law and the AKS, Just in Time for the Holidays,” we discussed the advanced publication of two significant final rules intended to “modernize” and “clarify” regulations regarding the Physician Self-Referral Law (“Stark Law Final Rule”) and the Anti-Kickback Statute (“AKS Final Rule”) – both formally published on December 2, 2020 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (“OIG”), respectively.
Continue Reading Analysis of OIG’s New and Revised Regulatory Safe Harbors to the Federal Health Care Program Anti-Kickback Statute and Beneficiary Inducement Prohibition
On September 13, 2020, President Trump issued an Executive Order (the “Executive Order”) directing the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) to issue regulations instituting two most-favored-nations (“MFN”) payment
Continue Reading Medicare Part B Most Favored Nation Drug Pricing Model: New Rules, New Lawsuits, New Tweets
On December 2, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) finalized policies that “aim to increase choice, lower patients’ out-of-pocket costs, empower patients, and protect taxpayer dollars” with changes to the Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (“OPPS”) and the Ambulatory Surgical Center (“ASC”) Payment System in the Medicare OPPS and ASC Final Rule (“Final Rule”). These changes include: elimination of the “Inpatient Only List” and additions and revisions to the “ASC Covered Procedures List” – two key areas of “site neutrality”. Site neutrality is a move to diminish or eliminate the reimbursement differences between different sites of service.
Continue Reading Forthcoming Medicare Rule Furthers Push for Site Neutrality
