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Building on prior requests for information and an increased focus on Medicare Advantage oversight, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued another request for information (RFI) seeking input on data needed for Medicare Part C, also known as the Medicare Advantage (MA) program. The goal of this RFI, which was published in the Federal Register on January 30, 2024, is to provide CMS with feedback on both the format and types of data that will allow CMS to have better insight into MA organizations and their operations and to consider future rulemaking. Responses to the RFI are due by May 29, 2024.

This RFI is an extension of CMS’s General MA RFI published in August 2022, which generated over 4,000 responses from various stakeholders. The 2024 RFI broadly seeks input on “all aspects of data related to the MA program—both data not currently collected as well as data currently collected.” The eventual goal is to make MA data commensurate with data available from Medicare Parts A and B to ensure appropriate transparency into MA organizations and to address perceived shortcomings through additional rulemaking.Continue Reading CMS Issues RFI for Medicare Advantage Data

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published its final rule that requires nursing homes enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid to disclose additional ownership and management information to CMS and state Medicaid agencies. The rule finalizes CMS’s proposed rule from February, with just two differences, as we describe further below.

The rule implements Section 1124(c) of the Social Security Act, which was added by the Affordable Care Act to require the disclosure of additional information about ownership and oversight of nursing facilities. Medicare-enrolled skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and Medicaid-enrolled nursing facilities (NFs) will soon be required to report many detailed aspects of their ownership and management structure, including both the executive leadership and any members of the facilities’ governing bodies.

CMS plans to gather the information in 2024, beginning when the revisions to the Form CMS-855A is completed, regardless of where a facility is on its current five-year revalidation schedule. The information will then be made publicly available within one year.

Of note in the final rule is that CMS declined to finalize a broad definition of “real estate investment trust” (also known an “REIT”) from its February proposed rule and instead has finalized a definition that it finds more consistent with current federal law and industry practice.Continue Reading CMS Finalizes Nursing Home Ownership Rule

In an advisory opinion released on October 13, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) approved a plan by a muti-specialty practice to pay its employed physicians bonuses related to outpatient procedures performed by those physicians at ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) operated by the physician practice entity requesting the opinion (the Requestor).

According to the facts as presented by the Requestor, the practice employs a group of physicians across a range of specialties. The Requestor also operates two ASCs as corporate divisions of the practice’s legal entity and not as subsidiaries or affiliates. The Requestor plans to pay each employed physician who performs a procedure at either of the ASCs a quarterly bonus equal to 30% of the net profits generated by the facility fees that are directly attributed to that physician’s procedures performed at the ASCs during the preceding quarter.

Notably, there is no indication in the request that the bonus payments would be based solely on the professional component of services personally performed by the physicians; the measurement of profit per physician would be expected to include the technical component of the procedures.Continue Reading OIG Permits Multi-Specialty Practice to Pay Doctors Bonuses for Outpatient Procedures

UPDATE: Late in the evening of September 28, the House defeated H.R. 4368 by a vote of 191-237, with 27 Republicans voting against the bill. It was the only one of the four appropriations bills to fail.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published at 11:15 PM EST on September 27, 2023 while the House of Representatives was still voting on amendments to other appropriations bills.

A group of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives’ proposed Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 4368) would rescind the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s January 2023 change to the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) program to allow certified retail pharmacies to dispense mifepristone as part of a medication abortion regimen. The proposal would effectively limit retail pharmacy dispensing of the only medication that is labeled for medication abortion.Continue Reading GOP House Bill Proposes Repeal of Retail Pharmacy Dispensing of Mifepristone

On Monday, April 12, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to modify the HIPAA Privacy Rule to address the release of reproductive health care information to third parties for the purposes of civil, administrative, or criminal proceedings for care that is lawfully obtained.

OCR has also released a fact sheet on this NPRM. The NPRM included: (1) the addition of new protections with respect to certain information related to reproductive health care; (2) a new obligation for regulated entities to obtain “attestations” (which are different from HIPAA’s traditional authorization) before responding to requests for certain PHI related to reproductive health care; and (3) the modification of the definition of “person,” and the addition of several new definitions.Continue Reading Proposed changes to HIPAA highlight increased demands for third party access to reproductive health data

On April 7, 2023, only minutes apart, two federal district courts issued rulings on cases challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s regulations governing mifepristone, a key medication for women seeking an abortion. Both rulings faulted the FDA’s handling of the approval and its subsequent restrictions on the dispensing of mifepristone, but the two rulings came to very different conclusions as to what the availability of the drug should be.

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a 67-page opinion ordering that the FDA’s initial approval of the drug, which was approved in 2000, should be stayed pending the court’s full review of the merits of the case. The court then stayed its own order for seven days to allow the FDA to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Just minutes later, Judge Thomas Rice of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington issued a 31-page opinion ordering FDA and HHS not to make any changes to the availability of mifepristone under the current operative Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) program, which requires the drug to be prescribed and dispensed only by certified providers, among other requirements. Unlike Judge Kacsmaryk, whose injunction has nationwide effect, Judge Rice limited the effect of his order to only the 17 states and the District of Columbia who brought the challenge in his court. The 17 plaintiff states in this lawsuit are: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington and the District of Columbia.

The most difficult-to-reconcile aspect of the two orders is the fact that Judge Kacsmaryk’s order is a nationwide stay of the drug’s approval, while Judge Rice’s order to maintain the status quo availability only applies to the specific plaintiffs.  Notably absent from the Washington order’s applicability would be California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Virginia.Continue Reading Mifepristone Cases – Our Thoughts

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published a proposed rule on February 15, 2023 that would require Medicare-enrolled skilled nursing facilities (“SNFs”) and Medicaid-enrolled nursing facilities (“NFs”) to disclose additional ownership and management information to CMS and state Medicaid agencies.

The proposed rule would implement Section 1124(c) of the Social Security Act, which was created by the Affordable Care Act to require the disclosure of information about ownership and oversight of SNFs and NFs. CMS first published a proposed rule in 2011 to implement the provision; after receiving public comments, that rule was not finalized. Twelve years later, CMS is trying again, citing concerns about the standard of care that residents receive in these facilities, including those owned by private equity companies and real estate investment trusts (“REITs”).Continue Reading CMS Wants to Know Who Owns Nursing Facilities

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) has reopened the comment period on its June 2021 interim final rule establishing an Emergency Temporary Standard governing occupational exposure to COVID-19 in healthcare settings, codified at 29 C.F.R. § 1910 Subpart U (“Healthcare ETS”).

While this reopening reaches certain questions and issues presented by OSHA and not the entire rule, the reopening of the comment period signals the beginning of the effort to finalize a permanent standard by OSHA only three months after the agency withdrew the Healthcare ETS. The Healthcare ETS required healthcare organizations to develop a COVID-19 plan for its workplace that included health screening and management, masking, distancing, and support for vaccination. The Healthcare ETS was withdrawn in December 2021 because OSHA determined that its efforts to establish a permanent standard would exceed the six-month time period allowed under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

The notice reopening the comment period gives stakeholders both an early view into potential regulatory outcomes of the final rule as well as a series of information requests.
Continue Reading OSHA reopens comments on COVID-19 Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard

On February 23, 2022, a federal district court judge in Texas agreed with the Texas Medical Association that some provisions of the interim final rules implementing the No Surprises Act were promulgated in violation of the provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”). As a remedy, the court ordered those provisions vacated and remanded the affected rules back to the federal agencies for further consideration.

In a memorandum issued February 28, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, one of the federal agencies that promulgated the rule (along with the Employee Benefits Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service) indicated that it was still reviewing the court’s decision and considering next steps, which could include an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Additionally, CMS said that it was withdrawing any guidance documents based on the invalidated sections and will launch revised guidance and training for certified independent dispute resolution (“IDR”) entities and parties subject to the process. Those guidance documents will be edited to conform to the court’s decision and republished. Important to providers, CMS emphasized that the court’s order does not affect its other rulemaking related to the No Surprises Act.
Continue Reading Portion of No Surprises Act IDR rule procedures set aside by federal district court

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearm injuries are a serious public health problem in the United States. To combat this problem, many states have passed extreme risk protection order (“ERPO”) laws, otherwise known as “red flag laws.”

ERPO laws allow various individuals, including family members, health care providers, and law enforcement