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Showing 179 posts in Health Care Law.

Healthcare Practitioners – Three Ways to Use KASPER to Protect Your Practice

Posted In Health Care Law, KASPER

Prevention and compliance best practices for healthcare providers are a hot topic, and this isn’t likely to change, maybe ever. As the opioid crisis continues to grow and healthcare providers come under increasing scrutiny, one tool is emerging as a resource for prescribing providers, and it’s probably not what you would expect: KASPER, Kentucky’s prescription reporting database. Below are three ways to get the most out of KASPER to keep your practice in compliance. More >

With Great Power, Comes Great Liability?

As medical advancements and patients in need of medical care continue to increase, the role of mid-level practitioners becomes even more crucial.  While there have been many turns of phrase for these medical professionals, the term “mid-level practitioner” is meant to encompass those non-physician providers, which include advanced practice nurses and physician assistants, among others. In Kentucky, there has been a shortage of primary care providers, which is particularly problematic in the state’s many rural areas.  This in turn has led to the push for more autonomy to these integral medical providers. While there are many reasons why this development is an improvement for patients and providers alike, this also leads to more liability exposure.  More >

Expanded Certificate of Need Exemptions Poised to Grow Healthcare Industry

Posted In Certificate of Need ("CON"), Health Care Law

In recent months, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has begun to amend the Kentucky Administrative Regulations and the Kentucky Revised Statutes, aiming to deregulate certain healthcare facilities and services to promote growth and expansion of healthcare services to Kentuckians. Kentucky’s ability to regulate the growth of its healthcare industry is based, in part, on the State Health Plan, the Certificate of Need (CON) process and the licensure of healthcare entities through the Office of Inspector General. As a Certificate of Need state, Kentucky-based healthcare providers who wish to initiate or expand healthcare services generally must go through a lengthy and expensive process unless they meet one of the few available exemptions. For years, Kentucky excluded certain physician-owned healthcare entities from both the Certificate of Need process and licensure through a series of strict guidelines established by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services known as the “physician office exemption.” More >

New Kentucky Law Provides More Access to Telehealth

Thanks to recently passed legislation going into effect July 1, 2019, Kentucky providers will have more access to patients via telehealth. Previously, telehealth visits were limited to doctors and high-level practitioners, with patients required to be in a clinical setting for the visit. The new law will allow commercial insurance and Medicaid to pay for telehealth visits in the home as well as pay mid-level providers for telehealth visits. More >

Healthcare Entities: How is Your Cyber Security?

Posted In Health Care Law, HIPAA

In an evolving world of cyber terrorism where individuals such as Edward Snowden grab headlines by stealing national secrets, it should come as no surprise that protected healthcare information (“PHI”) kept by providers has become a “target rich environment” for foreign governments and individual hackers alike. In addition to threats from outside entities, healthcare providers must also realize and appreciate that state and federal regulatory and statutory requirements govern the creation, maintenance and protection of PHI, including through but not limited to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (“HITECH”) Act.  Failure to abide by these complex and stringent rules can lead to significant penalties.  More >

CMS Executes About-Face on Pre-Dispute Arbitration Ban

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published a proposed rule on June 5, 2017, that serves as an effective course reversal on pre-dispute arbitration agreements in a long-term care (“LTC”) setting. This caps off an effort by many in the healthcare and nursing home industry to stop the prior rule, which banned such agreements, from taking effect. More >

Compliance Programs for Nursing Facility Providers

Posted In Health Care Law, Healthcare Regulation

Nursing facilities are now required to develop and implement effective compliance and ethics programs under newly-created Section 483.85 of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) §6102. These programs must be in effect by November 28, 2017. These regulatory requirements are highly complex, especially the requirement of annual review and revision of the programs.   More >

A New Day for Healthcare in Kentucky

Posted In Health Care Law, Senate Bill 4

Starting in July, practitioners may be asked to sign for mail from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and open this to discover a “Proposed Complaint.” Thanks to a new and sweeping effort at reform in healthcare in the Commonwealth, Kentucky healthcare providers now need to know what to expect if they receive such a Proposed Complaint. More >

Quality Over Quantity: The Shift from Fee-for-Service to Value-Based Payment Systems

The United States Department for Health and Human Services (“HHS”) recently announced its intention to tie thirty percent of fee-for-service Medicare payments to alternative and value-based payment models by 2016. HHS hopes to increase that amount to fifty percent by the end of 2018. Currently, up to twenty percent of payments are made through alternative models, a substantial increase in a short amount of time since almost no payments were made through alternative models as recently as 2011. Two days after HHS’ announcement, a group of key health care industry stakeholders announced the formation of the Health Care Transformation Task Force, a new industry consortium making a public commitment to transition seventy-five percent of its business between now and 2020 to value-based arrangements. These developments demonstrate the shift from fee-for-service payments based on quantity of work regardless of outcome and signals a larger trend to seek quality over quantity. With the seemingly meteoric rise of value-based care, it is important to understand the ramifications of alternative payment models within the health care industry as a whole. More >

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