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McBrayer Blogs
Showing 179 posts in Health Care Law.
Doe v. Guthrie Clinic, Ltd.: A New Privacy Battleground?, cont.
Earlier this week, I mentioned the Doe v. Guthrie Clinic, Ltd.[1] case and what it may mean for provider liability. In a nutshell, the plaintiff in Guthrie seeks to extend the fiduciary duty of patient confidentiality beyond the licensed provider to the medical corporation, including hospitals and medical practices. Under the proposed theory, the hospital or medical practice could be held directly liable for the unauthorized disclosure of patient information regardless of whether an employee disclosed the information within the scope of employment. In other words, the unauthorized disclosure of patient information would be attributed to the medical corporation, which acting through its representatives, breached patient confidentiality. More >
Doe v. Guthrie Clinic, Ltd.: A New Privacy Battleground?
Most health care providers are aware of the significant liability implications of a breach of protected health information, including, in some cases, the cost of issuing a breach notification to affected individuals. Providers have not, however, faced significant liability from patient lawsuits filed directly against a hospital or medical practice for damages arising from a breach of confidentiality. The reason is that patients face an uphill battle when suing a hospital or medical practice directly because most laws that protect patient information, including HIPAA, do not provide a private right of action for patients to sue the provider. More >
Get Ready to Negotiate: OIG Authorizes Hospitals to Pay Physicians for Call Coverage
Since the enactment of EMTALA in 1986, hospitals have struggled with providing sufficient call coverage to meet federal requirements as physicians have been increasingly hesitant to take on the added responsibility, cost, and risk of responding to emergency department requests for consultation. With patients often presenting in increasingly acute conditions with no health insurance coverage, physicians understandably find themselves between a rock and a hard place as utilization of hospital emergency departments has skyrocketed, particularly in Eastern Kentucky. And, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see these patients in the hospital emergency departments without also seeing the patients for follow-up in private physician offices often without payment. Thus, the movement for hospitals to pay for physician call services started amid a tangled web of intricate financial relationships, power struggles between hospitals and medical staff, and a statutory and regulatory maze of the Stark Law and Anti-kickback Statutes. Finally, good news is on the horizon as a result of a series of recent Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s Advisory Opinions, which essentially give the okay for a hospital to pay a per diem fee to specialists providing unrestricted on-call coverage for hospital emergency departments within certain parameters. For physicians, these OIG Opinions give clear guidance and should be a tool to negotiate payment for call within the parameters of fair market value. More >
The Doctor Is Out, But The PA Will See You Now
On March 25, 2013, Governor Steve Beshear signed House Bill 104, a bill that will change how Physician Assistants (“PAs”) practice in the Commonwealth. Under former law, a PA had to be directly supervised in by a doctor in the first eighteen months of their medical practice. Kentucky had the longest supervision requirement of any state in the U.S. More >
Final Rule for Physician Payments Sunshine Act Recently Released
The long-awaited final regulations for the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (“Sunshine Act” or “Act”) were finally released on February 1, 2013. I previously discussed the Sunshine Act (see Here Comes the Sun, Are you Prepared?,10/18/2012), but with the final rule now implemented, providers should take a second look at it and reconsider its implications. More >
House Bill 1 Revisited: Kentucky General Assembly Amends the Pill Mill Bill
In a 2012 Special Session, the Kentucky General Assembly passed House Bill 1, also known as the “pill mill bill,” to reign in the overprescribing of prescription drugs and the diversion of prescription drugs. Following the enactment of House Bill 1 and it being signed into law by Governor Beshear, the Cabinet and various licensure boards issued regulations implementing House Bill 1’s requirements. After emergency regulations were promulgated, Governor Beshear’s office held a series of stakeholder meetings to address the concerns of health care providers and other stakeholders to address some of the compliance and logistical issues that were being raised by stakeholders. Both Governor Beshear’s office, as well as various licensure boards, recognized that House Bill 1 and the implementing regulations would require amendment and refinement to address concerns raised by the provider community and other stakeholders. During the 2013 Regular Session of the General Assembly, some of these concerns were addressed in House Bill 217 which amended portions of House Bill 1 to address some of the compliance and other issues raised by health care providers and other stakeholders. More >
More on the Final HIPAA Omnibus Rule
To follow up our previous blog on the Final Omnibus Rule (“Rule”) regarding HIPAA and HITECH, 78 Fed.Reg. 17, Part II, 5566-5702 (Jan. 25, 2013), which modifies 45 CFR Parts 160 and 164, we will now discuss the changes to the Breach Notification Rule. The modifications will greatly reshape how Covered Entities and Business Associates view a breach. More >
HHS Issues Final HIPAA Omnibus Rule
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) recently announced its issuance of the highly-anticipated regulations or Final Omnibus Rule (“Rule”) relating to the modification of the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Enforcement rules under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“the HITECH Act”). 78 Fed.Reg. 17 Part II (January 25, 2013) modifying 45 CFR Parts 160, 162, 164. The Final Rule, 78 Fed.Reg. 17 Part II, 563 pages in length, makes significant changes of which all providers need to be aware. A complete examination of the sweeping changes cannot be done in one article, so we will make a general summary of the most important changes. More >
Kentucky Health Cooperative One Step Closer
The Kentucky Department of Insurance just approved Kentucky Health Cooperative’s (“KYHC”) entry into the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s HMO insurance market. With this endorsement, KYHC will now be allowed to offer health plans to hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians beginning in October 2013. Benefits are set to begin in January 2014—the deadline for when most citizens will be required to have health insurance under the laws of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”). More >
An Analysis of Urinalysis—Considerations for Health Providers
Urinalysis, also referred to as urine drug screening, is an important procedure that health providers use for several reasons: to monitor patients’ medication compliance, detect drug abuse, or identify the presence of disease. There are numerous implications that accompany a urinalysis examination though, and health providers are sometimes left wondering if they should hand over the cup to patients. More >
