Posted on Health Care Law News July 8, 2015 by author
During the annual meeting of the American Health Lawyers Association, representatives from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (“OIG”), announced the creation of a designated litigation team exclusively focused on civil monetary penalties and exclusion cases, with a particular focus on physicians. The OIG team will provide an Read more →
Posted on Health Care Law News February 3, 2014 by author
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced effective January 31, 2014, a six-month moratorium continues for new and pending applications for home health agency providers and suppliers in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties and begins in Broward County. The moratorium, invoked under the Affordable Care Act, also affects other large metropolitan cities such as Read more →
Posted on Health Care Law News February 1, 2014 by author
According to a recent HHS-CMS directive that went into effect on January 15, 2014, “CMS has learned from contractors that providers are abusing the program and not changing inappropriate behavior even after extensive education to address these behaviors.” Such providers have now been deemed “recalcitrant,” and the “recalcitrant” category is one into which Medicare providers Read more →
Posted on Health Care Law News January 2, 2014 by author
Under a recent settlement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Affinity Health Plan, Inc., settled potential violations of the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules for $1,215,780. HHS-OCR’s investigation revealed that Affinity impermissibly disclosed (without consent) the protected health information of up to 344,579 individuals when it returned multiple photocopiers to a Read more →
Posted on Health Care Law News December 30, 2013 by author
On December 26th, 2013, HHS-OCR announced a $150,000 dollar settlement with Adult & Pediatric Dermatology, P.C.(APDerm), a Concord, Massachusetts-based private practice for alleged HIPAA violations discovered during an HHS-OCR investigation following a reported breach. As background, on October 7th, 2011,APDerm notified HHS that an unencrypted USB memory drive containing protected health information (PHI) had been Read more →