Jan 11, 2020 | Health Care
On January 9, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had recovered over $3 billion from False Claims Act cases in fiscal year 2019. Nearly 75% of that was the result of qui tam whistleblower lawsuits. According to the DOJ, of the total recovery,...
Nov 26, 2019 | Employment Law
Under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), an employer must reasonably accommodate a known disability if the accommodation would not impose an undue hardship on the employer’s business. To succeed in an ADA-based lawsuit, the plaintiff...
Nov 26, 2019 | White Collar Crime
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have published a memorandum of understanding related to violations by Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lenders. Citing a shared goal of addressing FHA program requirements and...
Nov 26, 2019 | Health Care
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued its final rule requiring hospitals to publish prices for services beginning in 2021. Under the rule, hospitals must disclose prices in a machine-readable format and on a searchable platform. The...
Nov 26, 2019 | Cyber Law, HIPAA
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) imposed civil monetary penalties (CMP) of $3 million and $1.6 million for HIPAA violations in the first half of November. $3 million CMP: Failure to Encrypt Devices In 2010, the University of...
Oct 23, 2019 | Health Care
Earlier this month, both the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG), and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued proposed rules that contain major and significant changes to the Anti-Kickback statute (AKS), the...
Oct 23, 2019 | Cyber Law, HIPAA
Roger Severino, Director of the U.S. Health & Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR), recently provided an update on OCR’s HIPAA enforcement priorities at a conference in Washington, D.C. During his talk, Director Severino noted that patient access to...
Oct 23, 2019 | Employment Law
The EEOC’s enforcement efforts in the healthcare industry show no sign of slowing. In the first two weeks of October 2019 alone, the EEOC settled with a medical practice for sex discrimination and sued a hospital for disability discrimination. Settlement Last month,...
Oct 23, 2019 | White Collar Crime
Federal sentencing, including the imposition of fines and penalties against corporate defendants, are governed by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Under some circumstances, the Guidelines allow fines to be reduced if a company demonstrates that it cannot afford to...
Aug 27, 2019 | Employment Law
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (amended by the Civil Rights Act of 1991) prohibits employee discrimination based on race, religion, color, sex, and national origin. One of the critical elements that a plaintiff must establish is whether they are an...
