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The regulatory debate over Specialty Hospitals continues as the moratorium on referrals of Medicare patients by physician-investors expired on June 8, 2005. The moratorium was an 18-month period in which Congress provided that physician ownership and investment in “specialty hospitals” would not qualify for the “whole hospital” and “rural provider” exceptions in the Stark Law.
Continue Reading Specialty Hospital Update

Health care providers welcomed the changes last year to the Medicare reassignment requirements that allow independent contractor physicians to reassign payment for Medicare-covered services regardless of the site of service to another entity such as a physician group. Prior to these changes, the Medicare reassignment regulations specifically required independent contractor physicians to provide services on a group’s premises if the group wanted Medicare to pay the group directly for that physician’s services.
Continue Reading CMS Comments on Radiology Service Agreements

In-house counsel who are employed in Louisiana but are not licensed to practice law here have until July 1, 2005 to file an application for limited licensure to practice under the Louisiana Supreme Court’s new In-House Counsel Rule.
Continue Reading Louisiana In-House Counsel Rule Deadline Approaching

In August of last year, a Colorado Federal District Court decided there is no private right of action under the privacy provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”). Strangely, this case was not brought by an individual claiming the health care provider, a hospital, had violated the individual’s HIPAA rights.…

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently issued Phase II of the Final Regulations to implement and enforce the federal physician self-referral law (otherwise known as the “Stark Law”). The Stark Law generally affects all business relationships between physicians and other health care providers. Physician practices should review all aspects of their business…