Husch Blackwell

Contact:Read more about Husch Blackwell

Are you worried about audits and investigations at your post-acute care facility?  If not, you may need to be.  Husch Blackwell attorneys Brian Bewley and Barb Miltenberger weighed in on this issue in Report on Medicare Compliance.  The article discusses audits and investigations at post-acute care facilities and Bewley points out that home health and hospice…

Husch Blackwell welcomed two healthcare associates in recent months.

Jarrod W. Pearson joined our Denver office as a Healthcare Associate with more than four years’ experience practicing healthcare law in Colorado.  Jarrod represents hospitals, medical centers, physicians, nurses and others in the industry as they grapple with an evolving compliance and regulatory environment.  To read…

Mark D. Welker and  Scott A. Behrens, Husch Blackwell attorneys in our Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation group, recently addressed key questions employers should ask themselves about Healthcare Reform. Existing guidance in this area is complicated, confusing, and incomplete in many respects.  To access the key questions and examples of basic compliance hurdles and planning strategies, click

Husch Blackwell attorney Molly Kurt recently addressed this question in a review of cases in which OFCCP has attempted to assert jurisdiction over hospitals as covered federal subcontractors.  Most recently, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued UPMC Braddock et al. v. Harris, in which the district court affirmed the decision…

On April 17, 2013, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) updated the OIG’s self-disclosure protocol (SDP).  This update significantly revises the SDP first published in 1998, and supersedes the OIG’s related open letters to providers from 2006, 2008 and 2009. To date, the OIG has processed 235 settlements and monetary recoveries in excess of $280…

If you have been struggling to figure out the risk assessment requirements of the Final HIPAA Omnibus Rule, then you are in luck.  Join us for a webinar!  Husch Blackwell attorneys Pete Enko and Peter Sloan along with Director of Information Management Consulting Deb Juhnke will present the Who, What, When, How and Why…

Nursing is a study in multi-tasking: multiple patients with multiple issues that require complex medication management.  In addition, nurses have to manage massive amounts of information from both human and computer sources.  This week, The Joint Commission called for hospitals to address “alarm fatigue.”  According to The Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert, medical devices that issue too many audio and visual…

Skilled nursing facilities have long been subject to civil money penalties (CMPs).  Depending on where the facility is located, it could mean CMPs of hundreds of thousands of dollars or less than $10,000 (with a waiver) for the same type of deficiency.   No longer.  Effective April 1, 2013, Regional Offices (RO) for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for…

With so many rating systems and awards, hospital administrators and patients alike are increasingly frustrated and confused about which hospitals are the “best.”  According to an article by Kaiser Health News (KHN) in conjunction with The Philadelphia Inquirer, one-third of all U.S. hospitals received at least one distinction from a major ratings group or company…

This post was prepared by Toni Blackwood and Tim Hilton, labor and employment attorneys at Husch Blackwell. 

Following 12 months of public comment, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a revised Form I-9 on Friday, March 8, 2013. The form has a new look, contains more specific instructions and solicits additional information. Although the form is available for use now, it becomes mandatory in May 2013.

Every U.S. employer is required to record on Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 the employment authorization and identity of every person hired in the U.S. High profile enforcement actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), growing employer experience with high administrative fines resulting from ICE I-9 audits, and the public debate over illegal immigration have combined to raise awareness in recent years of the importance of Form I-9 to all employers. These factors all make it vital that employers have a clear understanding of the form itself and how to complete it.

The new form contains additional data fields, such as those asking for the email address, telephone number (both optional) and foreign passport number for the employee in Section 1. The new form includes a prominent warning to new employees of the consequences of using false documents or making false statements when completing Form I-9. This is an important addition, as ICE has pursued remedies against individuals for using false documents and for making false claims of citizenship on Form I-9. There are also overall improvements in the form’s layout, making the employer’s Section 2 easier to read and understand. Perhaps the most obvious change is that the form has expanded to two pages.