Several years ago the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) required skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) to report nurse staffing levels using the SNF’s payroll records, in an effort to obtain more accurate information about actual daily nurse presence in SNFs. CMS has collected this Payroll Based Journal (PBJ) information for a few quarters now ...
On December 4, 2018, the Michigan Legislature pared back the minimum wage and paid sick leave laws it passed last September in an effort to preclude those issues from being on the November ballot. Had the Legislature not adopted the language of the ballot initiatives legislation, the measures would have been on the November ballot and it would have needed a vote of three-fourths of each house to amend the law if adopted by the voters ...
On December 7, 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a Proposed Rule that clarifies procedures and criteria for the de novo medical device clearance pathway. In a statement accompanying the Proposed Rule, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb stated FDA believes the Proposed Rule will help facilitate classification of innovative low- to moderate-risk novel medical devices by providing more structure, clarity, and transparency to the de novo pathway ...
On December 11, 2018, Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene A. Depasquale released a long-awaited report discussing the role of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in Pennsylvania’s health care system ...
The end is near. 2018 is fast coming to a close, and it is that time of year when corporate lawyers are counting—not the number of shopping days left until Christmas, but the number weeks, days and hours left before the end of the fiscal year. Admittedly, in the scramble to close deals, insurance requirements and indemnity provisions may not be at the top of the list of critical deal points for clients and counsel ...
Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes are frequently required to pay fines (called “civil money penalties” or “CMPs”) to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) when government surveyors find them out of compliance with the Requirements for Participation for Long-Term Care Facilities. It is not uncommon for CMS to assess CMPs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars ...
Under the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), large employers (generally those with 50 or more full-time employees or full-time equivalents) must report annually to the IRS information about the health coverage offered to their full-time employees during the prior year using IRS Form 1095-C. The IRS uses the forms to assess whether an employer "shared responsibility" penalty applies. Employers also must provide copies of the forms to their full-time employees ...
Increased federal oversight may be on the horizon for skilled nursing facility involuntary transfers and discharges. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) included in its 2019 Work Plan reviewing SNFs’ involuntary transfers and discharges, focusing on reviewing whether State agencies have effectively investigated and enforced proper transfer and discharge procedures ...
Often, board of education members believe what happens in executive session, stays in executive session. However, you and your board’s members, both new and old, are well-served to remember that many issues, including those involving personnel, discussed in executive session are communications that may be subject to discovery in a deposition or other legal proceeding by an affected employee ...
As in previous years, the California legislature kept busy in 2018. As a result, a number of new and noteworthy employment laws will go into effect on January 1, 2019, and beyond. Much of the legislation stems from the #MeToo movement by strengthening harassment and discrimination protection, imposing broader anti-harassment training obligations, updating lactation accommodations and mandating female presence on boards of public companies ...
The deadline for meeting the previously issued nursing home compliance mandate is approaching. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the mandate in 2016 and gave facilities three years to become compliant. On November 28, 2019, skilled nursing facilities (SNF) and nursing homes will be required to adopt and implement a compliance program as a condition for participation in Medicare and Medicaid ...
Educational institutions (“recipient” or “recipient institutions”) have been waiting for the Department of Education to issue formal Title IX regulations after it issued interim guidance in September 2017. This interim guidance rescinded previous Obama-era guidance that called for strict enforcement of Title IX and indicated that new formal guidance would be forthcoming ...
New State Minimum Wage Effective January 1, 2019, the State minimum wage increases to $12.00 per hour for employers with 26 or more employees, and $11.50 per hour for employers with 25 or fewer employees. New Local Minimum Wages Additionally, several California cities and counties have passed their own minimum wage ordinances with a more aggressive schedule of minimum wage increases ...
In a letter to state Medicaid directors on Nov.13, 2018, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Alexander Azar, announced a new demonstration opportunity that will allow states to provide improved care for adults with a serious mental illness (SMI) and children with serious emotional disturbance (SED) ...
In light of the new EU data protection scheme, shaped by the GDPR, Serbia has enacted a new Data Protection Law earlier this year, with its' applicability postponed for 21 August 2019. The new law was long-awaited: it has been 10 years since the existing law was passed, which was even at that moment already outdated (e.g. it recognized only consent in the written form and almost completely restricted data transfers to non-European countries) ...
Obviously, they are all natural disasters that climate scientists believe will increase in severity and intensity in the coming years. And they are all events that nursing homes and assisted living facilities (and all Medicare/Medicaid certified health care providers) are legally required to prepare for in order to protect their residents and patients. More pointedly, though, they are all events which the U.S ...
The Department of Labor issued an opinion letter that provides guidance to employers paying exempt employees an hourly wage or other extra compensation in addition to a guaranteed weekly salary.SeeU.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Div., Opinion Letter (Fair Labor Standards Act), FLSA2018-25 (Nov. 8, 2018) (“Opinion Letter”) ...
On November 15, 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a Proposed Rule, which, if finalized, will allow an institutional review board (IRB) to waive or alter certain informed consent requirements if a clinical trial poses minimal risk to human subjects and includes appropriate safeguards to protect the rights, safety, and welfare of those human subjects ...
In the last quarter of 2018, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) announced that ImmediaDent of Indiana, LLC (ImmediaDent), which operates nine dental care practices, and Samson Dental Partners, LLC (SDP), which provides administrative support to Immediadent, have agreed to pay the United States and the state of Indiana $5.1 million to resolve allegations that they improperly billed Indiana’s Medicaid program ...
In the last quarter of 2018, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued an opinion letter ending what had become known as the “80/20 rule” for tipped employees. The new rule, which eases restrictions on an employer’s application of the tip credit, is a reissuance of a 2009 opinion letter that had been supplanted by contrary guidance since 2011 ...
In an about-face from prior guidance, the Department of Labor issued a revised opinion letter on Thursday rescinding the so-called “20 Percent Rule” and expanding employers’ ability to claim the tip credit.SeeU.S. Dept. of Labor, Wage & Hour Div., Opinion Letter (Fair Labor Standards Act), FLSA2018–27 (Nov. 8, 2018) (“Opinion Letter”) ...
In an order dated at the end of 2018, the DIFC Court accepted that a party seeking an anti-suit injunction against proceedings in a foreign court must show that proceeding before the foreign court is or would be “vexatious or oppressive” to that party ...
Download the November 2018 edition of the Haynes and Boone OSHA Newsletter PDF. OSHA States that Most Instances of Workplace Drug Testing are Permissible In a memorandum dated October 11, 2018, OSHA clarified its position on drug testing under 29 C.F.R. § 1904.35(b)(1)(iv) ...
