Well, that was quite a week. Even with a federal holiday right in the middle, there were a number of developments in health care law that could reshape the very nature of the industry in the coming years.

Here is a summary of what happened last week and what we could foresee happening in the coming weeks.

Transgender Care for Minors

The Supreme Court ruled against transgender teens, their families, and their physicians on Wednesday when it upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors. The Court found that the law drew distinctions based on age and medical condition, not sex. As a result, the Court affirmed that the law satisfied the requirements of rational basis review.

Scot Hasselman, Lesley Reynolds, Sarah Cummings Stewart, Kristin Parker, Whitney Petrie and Sabrina Mato analyzed the Court’s decision and what it means for gender-affirming care nationwide in a blog post from last week.

Reproductive Health Privacy Rule

A little further down the federal judicial bench, but on the same day, District Court Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued an order vacating almost the entire 2024 Reproductive Health Privacy Rule. The rule, promulgated in the latter part of the Biden Administration, amended the HIPAA Privacy Rule to prevent health care providers from using protected reproductive health information to assist in criminal investigation of individuals seeking an abortion.

We wrote a blog post on this rule when it came out in April 2024.  Vicki Tankle, Nancy Halstead, Angela Matney, Sarah Cummings Stewart and Kristin Parker wrote a post on Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision and are working on a more in-depth client alert this week with more analysis of what the decision means for health care providers.

Danger for MSOs in Medical Practices

Scot Hasselman, Nicole Aiken-Shaban, Meghan Healey and I discussed a new Oregon law that targeted the use of Management Services Organizations in medical practices by subjecting them to the state’s ban on the corporate practice of medicine. The law is one of the first of its kind and seems to be a harbinger of things to come as other state legislatures have tried a similar push recently.

Senate Version of Reconciliation Bill Released

The Senate Finance Committee finally released its version of the Reconciliation Bill which takes an even deeper knife to Medicaid, puts tighter caps on provider taxes and does not provide the Medicare physician payment relief that the House version had in it. We covered the House version in a blog post last month and are planning a series of more in depth posts in the coming weeks as the Senate works through the provisions that are permitted until the Reconciliation procedure.

Congressional Republicans have set a July 4 deadline to deliver the final product to the president’s desk. But they have to contend with the Senate Parlimentarian’s rulings over the weekend that put in danger some of their most favored provisions. They also have to deal with the fact that the House version passed that chamber by an extremely narrow margin and that, in order to pass Reconciliation, they cannot afford to lose any votes from that majority.

Reed Smith will continue to follow all of these developments and any other that pop up in the health care industry in the coming weeks. If you have any questions about these or other developments, please do not hesitate to reach out to the health care lawyers at Reed Smith.