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This is the second blog of our Surprise Billing Series. This article will look at California’s Assembly Bill No. 72 which added sections to the California Health and Safety Code and to the California Insurance Code. This bill was one of the first to limit surprise billing and mandate a minimum re-payment amount from insurers for affected out-of-network services and as such has served as a case study for surprise billing legislation.

On September 23, 2016, the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 72 (“the Law”). The Law applies to Health Care Service Plans regulated by the California Department of Managed Health Care (“DMHC”) and health insurers regulated by the California Department of Insurance (“CDI”) who have issued, amended, or renewed plans or policies after July 1, 2017. The Law has allowed other states across the US, as well as the Federal government, to observe how a change in handling surprise billing could affect patients and health care providers.

Husch Blackwell welcomes two attorneys to its Denver office: Senior Counsel Julie A. Sullivan and Associate Lawson S. Parker II. Sullivan and Parker both join the firm’s Healthcare, Life Sciences & Education industry team.

Sullivan has served as both in-house and external counsel to members of the healthcare industry. She counsels clients on a variety of regulatory and compliance issues, and transactional matters, and has also assisted clients with mergers and acquisitions. Parker assists hospitals, physicians, single and multi-specialty group practices, dentists and other healthcare professionals with respect to their operational, transactional and regulatory compliance matters. He also advises on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, the sale of healthcare-related entities and employment matters.

Husch Blackwell was highly recognized as Best Lawyers, a well-respected peer review publication, released its new rankings for 2015. This year, 19 of our Healthcare, Life Sciences & Pharmaceuticals industry group attorneys were selected as leaders in their respective fields.

First published in 1983, Best Lawyers is based on a national survey involving more than 5.5 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers.

In 2012, several American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA) members and leaders expressed interest in developing informal networking and professional development opportunities for women members and program attendees. After receiving feedback from informal in-person networking events held at the 2012 Annual Meeting and the 2012 Fraud and Compliance Forum, an AHLA Women’s Network took shape and in January 2014, the Women’s Leadership Council formalized the operation of the Network.

This year’s quarterly series of interviews with some of AHLA’s women members was designed with the intent to give young professional members an opportunity to profile some of our more experienced or uniquely situated AHLA members and leaders, to learn more about their path to success, and challenges they have faced along the way.

Husch Blackwell’s Healthcare, Life Sciences and Pharmaceuticals team continues to grow and to receive national recognition. National healthcare publication Modern Healthcare announced Husch Blackwell is the 12th-largest healthcare law firm in the U.S. according to its 2014 rankings, up from No. 17 last year. Utilizing differing measurement techniques, American Health Lawyers Association also ranked healthcare practices, placing Husch Blackwell as fifth-largest in the country in its 2014 list, released earlier in June. This ranking advanced from ninth in 2013, 14th in 2012 and 18th in 2011.

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…