The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 includes a provision that may significantly decrease reimbursement for services provided in new hospital outpatient departments. Click here for more information about the facilities that will be grandfathered into th… Read More

On October 30th, 2015, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (“CMS”) issued its final rules for physician payment for CY 2016. As part of this rule, physicians will now be paid for providing Advance Care Planning consultation to Medicare… Read More

The Virginia Department of Social Services (DSS) recently proposed new regulations for Assisted Living Facilities (ALFs). While many of the revisions are aimed at improving clarity through reorganizing regulation sections and updating language to ref… Read More

Recently, government agencies including the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Human Services (DHHS) (including the Office of Civil Rights (OCR)) have been actively pursuing healthcare providers who fail to provide adequate services or… Read More

On July 16, 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a sweeping Proposed Rule that would comprehensively revise Medicare and Medicaid participation requirements for nursing facilities for the first time since 1991. Mellett… Read More

Introduction A recent case may require residential health care providers—particularly continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs)—to carefully evaluate policies that could restrict resident access to facility amenities based on a resident’s… Read More

Introduction The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is moving forward with implementation of the Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ), an electronic system through which nursing facilities will soon be required to submit staffing and census info… Read More

Text messaging has become popular in the health care field, permitting providers to multitask and to communicate more quickly than with phone calls or pages... providers should be aware of the consequences under the HIPAA and the HITECH Act Read More