By DUSTIN T. WACHLER
Following recent enforcement actions against a variety of telemedicine arrangements throughout the country, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) published a Special Fraud Alert to notify practitioners to exercise caution when entering arrangements with purposed telemedicine companies.[1] The telehealth arrangements described in the OIG’s Alert implicate multiple federal laws including, but not limited to, the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, False Claims Act, criminal health care fraud statutes, as well as the OIG’s exclusion authorities related to kickbacks and Civil Monetary Penalties Laws provision for kickbacks. Additionally, such arrangements will also implicate state fraud and abuse laws related to [Read More]

By WASIF KHAN
For many healthcare providers, their roles as business owner and employer tend to be overshadowed by their role as a healer.   While employees can be your greatest asset, they also tend to be one of the largest liabilities as well.  Hiring the right employees – properly – will help mitigate risk and ensure compliance within the complex regulatory landscape of the healthcare industry.

How and What to Ask Pre-Offer

 Employers have historically asked prospective employees about their salary history before making an offer; however, many jurisdictions[1] have enacted laws that ban employers from doing so. Pre-employment, employers should focus on establishing compensation models commensurate with prevailing market rates [Read More]

Lansing Lines is presented in cooperation with MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

Nurses Sue U-M Over Refusal To Bargain

A lawsuit filed in mid-August alleges the University of Michigan is breaking the law by refusing to bargain over nurses’ workloads in contract negotiations with the University of Michigan Professional Nurse Council (UMPNC).

Michigan Nurses Association, the labor organization that filed the suit in the Court of Claims, says the 6,200 UMPNC nurses have worked without a contract since July 1. The organization alleges the university is violating the Public Employment Relations Act, which designates workload and safety as mandatory subjects of bargaining, and it wants an order compelling U-M to [Read More]

This story appears courtesy of MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 passed early this morning includes funds to expand adult and child mental health services and programs, and opens the door to a restructuring of dental benefits in the state, among a cornucopia of historic funding.

Rep. Mary Whitford (R-Casco Twp.), chair of the House DHHS Appropriations Subcommittee, and Michigan Association of Health Plans Executive Director Dominick Pallone hailed the funding as a great investment into the health of Michiganders.

“MDHHS is thankful for improvements in access to affordable, high-quality dental services for Michiganders, raising rates for [Read More]

This story appears courtesy of MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

More than 60 Ascension Michigan health care workers filed a federal lawsuit seeking to recover wages lost when they were suspended for not getting mandatory COVID vaccines and not complying with the health system’s 2021 policy.

The proposed class-action suit, filed in U.S. District Court Western District, alleges violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when hospital leaders placed employees on “involuntary, indefinite, unpaid leave of absence” in November 2021 after denying their religious exemptions requests.

According to the suit, Ascension required its employees – but not independent contractors, vendors, temporary staff, patients or visitors – to be vaccinated [Read More]

By EWE MATUSZEWSKI
Anniversaries can be wonderful – or emotionally difficult. I just celebrated a milestone wedding anniversary – a joyous occasion. Yet, the first anniversary of my brother’s passing as a result of suicide is looming and brings back feelings of shock, disbelief and the lingering question, “Is there anything I could have done?” My brother and I were, sadly, neither geographically nor emotionally close as adults (his choice on both.) Yet the raw feelings remain, the helplessness, the abiding sense of loss.

In my head, I know there truly was nothing I could have done. But I choose to do something now. And that is to be open about death [Read More]

By JESSE ADAM MARKOS, ESQ.
Wachler & Associates

On June 27, 2022, three days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned nearly 50 years of settled law in a direct assault on women’s rights and reproductive freedom, the Court issued an important decision for physician autonomy in a consolidated case ruling in Ruan v. United States. In that case, the Court raised the burden of proof for federal prosecutors seeking to hold physicians accountable under the Controlled Substances Act for the rise in addiction and death during the opioid crisis. While many of these prosecutions have certainly been laudable, others have involved treatment that was not so clearly egregious, treating what, at [Read More]

By KATHLEEN CAMPBELL WALKER
Dickinson Wright

On Feb. 12, 2022, the Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship of the House Committee on the Judiciary held a very informative hearing regarding the relevance of foreign physicians in the healthcare system of the United States. The hearing was titled, “Is There a Doctor in the House? The Role of Immigrant Physicians in the U.S. Healthcare System.” The testimony provided underscores the ridiculous labyrinth of immigration rules set to complicate and cause ongoing unpredictability for foreign physicians trying to obtain approval to serve the U.S. public – even when desperately needed.

Dr. David J. Skorton, the President and Chief Executive Office of the Association of American [Read More]

Legislature Says Planned Parenthood’s Abortion-Ban Challenge ‘Premature’

Lansing Lines appears with cooperation from MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

The Michigan Legislature asked a Court of Claims judge to dismiss Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit challenging the state’s abortion-ban law.

The filing says Planned Parenthood’s claims are “premature” because they “are based on a series of hypotheticals” and the relevant statute, MCL 750.14, “is not being enforced, and plaintiffs do not claim that there are any concrete threats of enforcement.”

“No state authority has sought to enforce the statute at issue here, making plaintiffs’ claims unripe,” the court brief from Nicholas Miller, of Washington, D.C.-based Schaeer-Jaffe LLP, reads on behalf of the Legislature. “First, [Read More]

A package of four Senate bills that modify the requirements for health facilities wishing to expand, including those increasing psychiatric bed numbers or purchasing an air ambulance, received a hearing in the House Health Policy Committee.

SB 181, sponsored by Sen. Curtis VanderWall (R-Ludington), would allow health facilities to bypass certificates of need in order to expand their number of psychiatric beds. It would also increase the threshold on expenditures requiring certificates of need to $10 million.

Currently, health facilities wishing to increase in size or spend more than $2.5 million on upgrades need a certificate.

SB 182, sponsored by Sen. Lana Theis (R-Brighton), would increase Certificate of Need Commission members from 11 [Read More]