By Joseph Conn October 26, 2009 Commercial healthcare laboratories are seeking parity with other healthcare providers under privacy provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. ... FULL STORY
By Joe Carlson October 19, 2009 California hospital owners are having trouble meeting the state-mandated deadlines for making their buildings more resistant to damage from earthquakes, saying that the ailing economy has left them unable to fund the improvements. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch October 12, 2009 The Justice Department trumpeted a recent $2.3 billion criminal plea and civil settlement with Pfizer as its largest healthcare case ever. At its core was the receptiveness of thousands of physicians to the company's overtures of tropical getaways and bogus consulting payments that drove the medical community's willingness to prescribe the anti-inflammatory drug Bextra for acute pain, although the Food and Drug Administration never approved it for that use. ... FULL STORY
By Shawn Rhea September 28, 2009 Early this month, Loyola University Health System took its incinerator offline just days before the Environmental Protection Agency issued a new rule that will require medical-waste processors to make expensive upgrades that further reduce incinerator emissions. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch September 28, 2009 While the president and his allies in Congress attempt to remake the healthcare landscape, the president’s antitrust enforcers are contemplating the first substantial rewrite of their guidebook on mergers since 1992. ... FULL STORY
By Jessica Zigmond September 21, 2009 Preparing for a mid-November public comment period deadline, renal-care providers last week wasted no time analyzing the CMS' newly proposed prospective payment system for facilities that provide dialysis services to Medicare beneficiaries with end-stage renal disease. At first look, providers didn't like everything they saw. ... FULL STORY
By Melanie Evans September 07, 2009 Hospitals and healthcare finance insiders are lobbying the CMS to revise proposed changes to how it requires hospitals to report uncompensated care. ... FULL STORY
By Jennifer Lubell August 24, 2009 Hospitals and physicians say they’re in favor of the growing number of CMS demonstrations to improve quality—they just want to make sure they get reimbursed fairly if and when these demos are put into practice. ... FULL STORY
By Shawn Rhea August 17, 2009 The Food and Drug Administration is showing signs that an overhaul of its beleaguered medical-products review programs is in the works, observers say. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn August 10, 2009 HHS is consolidating authority for both security- and privacy-rule enforcement under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 with the Office for Civil Rights at HHS. Some industry observers say the action could—but not necessarily will—lead to stricter enforcement of both federal rules. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian August 10, 2009 Mandated quality measures don’t always improve quality—if a recent move by regulatory officials is any indication. ... FULL STORY
By Joe Carlson August 10, 2009 Hospital executives exhaled a collective sigh of relief when the CMS announced it would not impose funding cuts on hospitals of more than $2 billion in Medicare payments and $380 million in capital indirect medical education for fiscal 2010, which begins for discharges on or after Oct. 1. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch August 03, 2009 Moving an Aug. 1 deadline, the Federal Trade Commission will wait until Nov. 1 to enforce a provision of the so-called “red flags” rule requiring physicians and hospitals to adopt written plans for tracking and responding to indicators of identity theft in their billing operations. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch August 03, 2009 Carilion Clinic’s plan to reinvent itself as a fully integrated physician-led system has brought rapid expansion of its services and ranks of employed physicians through acquisitions. Now the feds want some of them cut loose. ... FULL STORY
By By Joseph Conn July 27, 2009 The healthcare industry can save billions of dollars a year without government oversight or financial inducement just by doing what other industries already do to cut costs, according to a report by the Healthcare Administrative Simplification Coalition. ... FULL STORY
By Rebecca Vesely July 27, 2009 For only the second time in the past five years, a California hospital has lost its CMS contract for what the government says are serious and repeated deficiencies. The action triggers the loss of about $150 million in Medicare and Medicaid funding for Anaheim General Hospital. ... FULL STORY
By Jennifer Lubell July 06, 2009 While cheered by last week’s news that three despised Medicaid regulations would not go into effect, hospitals remain concerned about other rulemaking that could potentially threaten their payments under the public program. ... FULL STORY
By Joe Carlson July 06, 2009 The new commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service says not-for-profit hospitals are likely to experience even more scrutiny on their policies and actions in corporate governance in the near future. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch June 29, 2009 As a candidate for U.S. president, Barack Obama said that the Bush administration had “perhaps the weakest record of antitrust enforcement of any administration in the past half-century.” Over the past few months, President Obama has picked the people he believes will more aggressively police competition in the economy as he attempts to rebuild it, and the ones at the top have deep knowledge and interest in healthcare. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn June 22, 2009 A federal advisory panel sought to strike a balance between too much of a stretch and too little when it released a first draft of its so-called “meaningful use” recommendations last week. ... FULL STORY
