Back in mid-March, the Department of Labor (DOL) notified key stakeholders of the likelihood it would be issuing new regulations concerning COVID-19. Yesterday, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the DOL issued the long-awaited Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) regarding safety requirements that healthcare employers must implement and adhere to in light of COVID-19 ...
We are pleased to share the following summary about the Tennessee Business Relief Program. Key takeaways are: The money does not have to be paid back Revenue hopes to start disbursing in early July Unlike PPP and other relief programs, there is no application. A huge shout-out for the excellent summary to Jim Schmidt and Sharon Michie from the Tennessee’s Brewer’s Guild ...
As healthcare providers pursue transactions during and in the wake of COVID-19, both buyers and targets should prepare for heightened scrutiny during the due diligence process. Getting organized ahead of a sale can dramatically expedite timelines and reduce deal fatigue for all parties, particularly in light of the heavier-than-normal due diligence process as a result of the pandemic. Click here for a full PDF of this report ...
As the COVID-19 outbreak spreads and officials recommend or impose increasingly restrictive steps to mitigate the impact to public health, more companies are assessing what impact the outbreak is likely to have on their business and are considering whether that impact may necessitate furloughing workers. Following is a summary of some of the core compliance issues employers should consider as they develop contingency plans that may include furloughs ...
Welcome to PointByPoint. Conversations, interviews and legal commentary for today's business professionals. In this episode, Waller’s Mark Peters talks with employment attorney Kierstin Jodway about two of the major federal stimulus packages related to the coronavirus and what it means for businesses. Here is a transcript of the conversation: Mark Kierstin, thanks for being with us today ...
President Donald Trump announced that the federal government will halt payments known as cost share reduction (CSR) payments. The CSR payments amounted to approximately $7 billion this year, and served as a subsidy to enable lower-income Americans to afford health insurance coverage ...
On October 14, 2021, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office announced a $25 million healthcare fraud settlement against a private equity firm and former executives of the firm’s portfolio company. The settlement is significant because it is the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the country to date against a private equity firm based on the firm’s oversight of its healthcare portfolio company ...
The regulatory change proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the recent HIPAA Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is another step toward HHS’s objective to encourage a patient-centric healthcare environment. The HIPAA NPRM proposes to tilt the balance of protecting privacy and facilitating the availability of information toward loosening restrictions on disclosures of patient information ...
In one of the first concrete developments related to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) changes following Dr Thomas E Price’s approval as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a Notice of Proposed Rule making was recently released by HHS. The recent release by HHS stated a goal of helping to stabilize the individual and small group marketplaces established by the ACA ...
The impacts of the Americans with Disabilities Act loom largest in the public consciousness in the form of handicap-accessible parking spaces and entrance ramps — accommodations for physical access to public premises. But under the law, it also appears that businesses must make sure their websites and mobile apps are ADA-compliant. Derek Edwards is a partner at Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, where he specializes in financial services litigation ...
The Department of Health and Human Services recently released a letter that stated that using a single ventilator for two patients should be considered “an absolute last resort.” Of course, this statement assumes that a ventilator exists in the first place, and it says nothing about how to deal with several more than two patients needing the same ventilator. This, however, is only the tip of proverbial iceberg ...
When I became a judicial law clerk right out of law school, my boss, a federal judge in Houston, Texas, explained to me that the goal of his job (and therefore mine) was to find the right answer and do the right thing. That was, in a sense, easy enough. Research the law, and figure out how it applies to the particular facts of each case — because following the law is the right thing to do. Of course, judges will disagree about how the law should apply ...
The federal banking agencies issued two interim final rules this week providing temporary relief to community banks that are deciding whether to opt in to the community bank leverage ratio (“CBLR”) framework. The interim final rules reflect the agencies’ actions to implement Section 4012 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which requires them to temporarily lower the CBLR to 8 percent (from 9 percent) ...
City officials in Shelby County, Knox County, Hamilton County, Sullivan County, and Madison County have announced their respective plans to begin a phased reopening of non-essential businesses. Davidson County previously released its Roadmap to Reopening plan on April 24. Pursuant to Governor Lee’s Executive Order 29, the remaining 89 counties in Tennessee are required to follow statewide guidelines outlined in the Tennessee Pledge ...
Representation and warranty insurance (RWI) has boomed in popularity in the highly-regulated world of healthcare provider deals, and many dealmakers assume it will continue to be available as we ride the current wave of deals seeking to close by year-end 2021. That assumption may be wrong ...
Generations of restauranteurs and hoteliers have been told they cannot give away liquor. Since liquor by the drink was originally adopted in Tennessee in the late 1960s, it has been illegal to give away wine or spirits at any restaurant, hotel, entertainment venue or other on-premise outlet. No more. P.C. 755 allows any liquor by the drink establishment to serve a complimentary sample of wine ...
The hits keep coming to plaintiffs’ attorneys seeking to invalidate nursing home arbitration agreements. Last year, the plaintiffs’ bar could smell victory when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced its new rule banning arbitration clauses in nursing home admission contracts ...
Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, a case that many hoped would provide much-needed clarity on the viability of the implied certification theory of liability in False Claims Act cases. While the Court held the implied certification theory as a viable basis to impose liability, the ruling did little to provide the hoped-for clarity ...
The initial $350 billion in forgivable loans under the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) were claimed within 13 days. Given the initial interest, Congress on Thursday, April 23 approved an additional $484 billion of coronavirus-relief funding, including an additional $310 billion for the government-backed PPP and $75 billion in new funding for healthcare providers. President Trump is expected to sign the bill into law on Friday, April 24 ...
Last week, Waller co-hosted a roundtable discussion on interoperability with Brentwood Capital Advisors and were joined by healthcare IT companies, investors, providers and payors. Will Morrow, VP of HCA’s Health Insight Capital, and Hal Andrews, President of Healthcare for Digital Reasoning, kicked off the discussion with a case study on HCA’s work to achieve data interoperability and how HCA’s strategy led to its recent investment in Digital Reasoning ...
In revised Frequently Asked Questions (as of April 6, 2020) (the “FAQ”), linked here, the Small Business Administration in consultation with the Department of the Treasury addressed the questions of whether a small business borrower participating in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) could count the employee withholdings and the employee share of Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) tax in determining the maximum amount of borrowings and whether such a
