The United States Supreme Court declined yesterday to hear arguments in Home Care Association of America, et al. v. Weil, a case challenging the Department of Labor’s Final Rule that extended overtime and minimum wage protections to previously exempt home care workers ...
It was only a matter of time – following the election of President Biden and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress – before the Biden administration and legislative leaders would turn their attention to changing the tax code. While it is early in what promises to be a loud and lengthy legislative debate in Congress, tax proposals introduced by high-profile senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) designed to raise $5 ...
The U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) recently issued a Final Determination concluding that certain dental implants imported by Instradent USA, Inc. and by JJGC Industria e Comercio de Materiais Dentarios S/A of Brazil (“Respondents”) infringe U.S. Patent Numbers 8,714,977 and 8,764,443 and should be blocked from entry into the United States ...
Metro Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced a detailed plan for the staged reopening of restaurants, bars and music venues, as soon as May 1. The real question is: will anyone reopen their dining room on May 1st? You can read the entire Roadmap here. Initial reactions do not look good if you are in the market for a sitdown meal on May 1 ...
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has finalized its proposal to expand the experimental Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model to all 50 states and conclusively transition Medicare home health services to outcome-driven, value-based reimbursement beginning in calendar year (CY) 2023 ...
The impacts of COVID-19 appear set to permanently expand telehealth and fundamentally transform how and where providers practice. Shortly after the start of the pandemic, CMS made major temporary federal policy changes in response to the pandemic, including expanding access to telehealth services for people with Medicare, such as home health visits, and reimbursement for additional services when furnished via telehealth ...
Membership substitution transactions are the most common form of business combination transaction in the nonprofit hospital industry. They are also widely misunderstood and the source of many mistakes. Many large 501(c)(3)s have become more acquisitive as a result of economic pressures of the ACA. Nonprofit health systems have been getting much better at participating in and winning competitive sale processes, resulting in an increased use of this business combination form. http://www ...
On the heels of Gov. Bill Lee’s Safer at Home Order, we are seeing a second wave of restaurant closures. Which begs an important question: Should I let the ABC and local beer board know that my business is closed? Although we have not seen any formal guidance from the ABC or beer boards on temporary corona closures, we do not expect any citations to issue for closed restaurants, bars, hotels and other licensed establishments ...
Metro Nashville has issued clarifying guidance for re-entering revised Phase Two, which begins July 3, 2020. Citing the spike in cases reported after the Memorial Day holiday, Mayor Cooper intends to prevent a new outbreak from large crowds celebrating the Fourth of July in Nashville’s Lower Broad. Dr ...
Mayor Cooper has ordered Phase 1 of Metro Nashville’s Roadmap for Reopening to begin May 11. Restaurants and stores can open at half capacity starting Monday. The Roadmap is a four-phase plan to restart the city’s economy ...
On June 5, President Trump signed the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020 (the “Act”) into law, providing several important modifications to the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) that PPP borrowers should know about ...
Among the many liquor laws passed this legislative session by the Tennessee General Assembly, one of the biggest changes, in our humble opinion, is the new Open Carry law. P.C. 755 allows restaurants, hotels and other liquor-by-the-drink establishments to serve alcohol into common areas and allow adjacent restaurant patrons to bring alcoholic beverages into their restaurant. You can now walk between restaurants with your cocktail, glass of wine or mug of suds ...
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq Stock Market (Nasdaq) recently granted temporary relief and issued guidance to assist companies that are in imminent danger of immediate delisting and/or that are experiencing urgent liquidity needs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic ...
Waller’s Financial Technology practice has been providing advice to processors, banks, ISOs, financial technology providers, merchants and other participants in the payment processing ecosystem for over forty years ...
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) issued an interpretive letter (the “Stablecoin Letter”) confirming that national banks and federal savings associations are permitted to take and hold fiat currency deposits that serve as reserves for fiat-currency backed stablecoins associated with hosted digital wallets (the “OCC Stablecoin Letter”) ...
Not only are healthcare providers under attack in the daily battle against the coronavirus, criminal actors are quickly taking advantage of relaxed HIPAA enforcement and standards, teleworking and the general intensity of the situation to exploit patient and other confidential information ...
Although HIPAA is probably best known for its privacy and security provisions, it also affords certain essential rights to ensure that individuals have access to their medical records. Since 2019, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has stated its intent to increase enforcement of this specific right in response to a directive from HHS. There has been a gradual increase in this targeted enforcement activity until recently ...
COVID-19 is having a transformational impact on American workplaces, which has short- and long-term consequences. Waller partners Bo Campbell and Aron Karabel join this episode to address the transformation. Campbell, a leader on Waller's real estate team, discusses the impacts on commercial leasing and how the work-from-home phenomenon will impact office trends and future development projects. Here is a transcript of the conversation: Morgan Ribeiro, Host Welcome to PointByPoint ...
Earlier this month, the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG)published an advisory opinionthat permitted a pain management practice to retain the profits it received from billing for the anesthesia services that an employed CRNA provided at an ASC partially owned by the practice’s physician-owner ...
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a Special Fraud Alert from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) highlighting the fraud and abuse risks associated with the offer, payment, solicitation, or receipt of remuneration related to speaker programs sponsored by healthcare companies ...
Introduction On April 1, 2020 — the effective date of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) — the Department of Labor (DOL) issued “temporary regulations” to interpret and enforce the landmark legislation passed by Congress “to assist working families facing public health emergencies” arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic ...
In September, President Biden announced aggressive plans to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, taking the fight directly to the workplace and ordering mandatory vaccination or weekly testing to employers with 100 or more employees. This week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued anEmergency Temporary Standard(ETS) regarding the COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirements for employers ...
Yesterday, the Department of Labor informally notified key stakeholders that it will soon be issuing new regulations concerning COVID-19. One expectation is that the regulations will require employers to not only implement COVID-19 prevention programs but also follow CDC guidelines ...
On the heels of growing pressure and mounting criticism from Congress and labor unions that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was not doing enough to protect workers, OSHA issued new guidance expanding employers’ reporting requirements related to COVID illnesses ...
