Health Law Alert

Home health agencies (“HHAs”) are struggling to deal with changes from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) on two fronts.  On July 10, 2017, CMS released a final rule delaying the effective date of the changes to the Conditions of Participation (“COPs”) for HHAs that was published on […]

On September 15, 2017, the Iowa Board of Medicine published final administrative regulations governing the supervision of physician assistants PAs in Iowa.  Although the new rules are effective September 20, 2017, enforcement of the rule is delayed until January 1, 2018 in order to allow time for education and implementation. […]

Beginning in January 2016 and usually produced monthly since then, the OIG has released videos on a wide variety of topics that the OIG states “highlight an emerging health care issue or trend.”  The videos are not copyrighted and may be viewed from the OIG website www.oig.hhs.gov or accessed and […]

The Jimmo v. Sebelius case, settled in 2013, clarified Medicare coverage of nursing services and therapy to prevent deterioration, the so-called “maintenance coverage” standard.  The clarification was necessary to dispense with a long-held erroneous belief that Medicare only covered nursing and therapy services when the beneficiary was expected to improve.  Ironically, there […]

On August 2, 2017, in the 2018 Medicare Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System and Long Term Acute Care Hospital Prospective Payment System Final Rule (the “Final Rule”), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released changes to the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record Incentive Program (“Meaningful Use”).  The […]