The US Department of Health and Human Services recently announced the establishment of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE). Noting that the OCCHE is “the first office of its kind at the national level to address climate change and health equity,” the OCCHE will be tasked with assisting with regulatory efforts aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and criteria air pollution throughout the healthcare sector.
Health Law Scan
Legal Insights and Perspectives for the Healthcare Industry
In the complex world of Medicare reimbursement, there are a multitude of payment formulae, mathematical adjustments, and reimbursement calculations that translate congressional policy into operational payments for hospital providers. But sometimes the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) doesn’t get the math right. Recently, the US District Court for the District of Columbia found that academic medical centers have been subject to one such calculation error that implicates the amount such teaching hospitals receive as payment in support of direct graduate medical education (GME). Milton S. Hershey Med. Ctr. v. Xavier Becerra, Civ. Action No. 19-2680 (May 17, 2021). Based on the court’s reasoning, teaching hospitals operating above their full-time equivalent (FTE) resident cap may have been systematically underpaid as a result of the regulatory payment formula for determining the weighted FTE amount of residents used to calculate the GME payment. Other hospitals have recently followed Hershey Medical into the DC District Court seeking similar decisions.
In the most recent edition of our Global Healthcare Transactions Series, we focus on the Asia-Pacific region, which saw a wave of healthcare activity in 2020 including record high deals and a new peak for disclosed value. These gains can be attributed to macroeconomic trends such as aging populations and increasingly affordable healthcare, and favorable government policies encouraging local manufacturing and development of healthcare products.
Our healthcare team recently launched a publication series highlighting the global impact of COVID-19 on healthcare transactions. Around the globe, the healthcare industry has faced similar issues from the unprecedented pandemic, prioritizing their operational response to COVID-19. Now, as countries begin to reopen, healthcare entities may refocus on planning for long-term transformation of their business models. In this series, we will explore how the pandemic impacted healthcare transactions in specific regions and what we can expect in a post-pandemic world.
Last month we had an incredibly insightful Fast Break analyzing a significant HIPAA enforcement victory for The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson) in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. If you missed our live program with Morgan Lewis partner Scott McBride and MD Anderson Deputy Chief Compliance Officer Krista Barnes, you can still view the presentation, or check out the highlights below.
Healthcare systems have been on the front lines of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and may have several questions about how to manage workforce challenges as we look toward the upcoming months.
In a recent LawFlash, our colleagues in the white collar practice discuss the potential for higher education institutions to face criminal and civil liability if they are not in compliance with federal law in the administration of federal grants and expenditure of federal research dollars, as recent cases tied to simultaneous research in China show.
The Morgan Lewis healthcare team continues to monitor the developments surrounding the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We are acutely aware of what the healthcare service provider community is currently facing and are here to help.