Late last month, the Biden Administration announced the second installment of its recovery plan, dubbed the “American Jobs Plan” (the “Plan”). The Plan’s $2.3 trillion price tag includes
Continue Reading The American Jobs Plan and the American Rescue Plan: The Biden Administration Bets Big on Home and Community-Based Services
In response to the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency (the “PHE”) first declared on March 13, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued blanket Section 1135 Waivers to expand, albeit on a temporary basis during the PHE, the range of healthcare professionals who can provide Medicare-covered telehealth services to include physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, and other non-physician practitioners. (See also, CMS Fact Sheet, “Medicare Telemedicine Health Care Provider Fact Sheet” (March 17, 2020) and CMS’s “COVID-19 Emergency Declaration Blanket Waivers for Health Care Providers” (December 1, 2020)).
Continue Reading The Other Shoe Drops: OIG To Audit COVID-19 Telehealth Home Health Services
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
In a July 21, 2020 American Hospital Association (AHA) Press Release, the AHA announced the results of a new analysis prepared by Kaufman, Hall & Associates, LLC that, “highlights the dire impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the financial health of hospitals and health systems.” According to the Press Release, the analysis shows that, without further government support, margins could sink to -7% in the second half of 2020, with half of all hospitals operating in the red. In this same Press Release, the AHA referenced its own studies that estimate a minimum of $323.1 billion in COVID-19 – related financial losses for hospitals and health systems in 2020.
Continue Reading Hospitals, Home Health Agencies, and Skilled Nursing Facilities: The Costs of COVID-19 and Federal Relief for Healthcare Providers
Since 2014, there has been a steady increase in mergers and acquisitions in the Rehabilitation sector, with a total of 40 deals announced in 2016. This is almost double the number of deals in 2014 (a total of 21), and includes deals with both publicly traded corporations as well as privately held acquirers. Similarly, after seeing a sharp decline in M&A activity in 2015, the home health and hospice sectors saw an increase of 12% in M&A activity in 2016 with a total of 57 deals announced, including several deals involving private equity investors.
Continue Reading Merger and Acquisition Activity in the Rehabilitation, Home Health and Hospice Sectors Increased in 2016, But Will this Trend Continue?