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.

This post was provided by Debbie Juhnke in Husch Blackwell’s Information Governance group.

According to a recent KPMG report on data loss, the healthcare industry’s greatest exposures for data loss are hard copy loss/theft, PC theft, and social engineering, ranking first (in a tie), second, and third against other sectors respectively for percentage of data…

More and more judges are rejecting settlements negotiated between federal regulators and companies accused of corporate fraud. Two recent examples illustrate this trend.

1. WakeMed

In January of 2013, a judge in North Carolina rejected a settlement reached between the Department of Justice and WakeMed Health and Hospitals, an 870-bed hospital system. WakeMed was accused…

Cyber security is on everyone’s mind.  President Obama signed an executive order in February aimed at increasing protection of our nation’s critical infrastructure, while HHS released its new HIPAA mega rule in January (effective in March) in an effort to strengthen the security of electronic health records.  As providers work to update their HIPAA policies…

On Thursday, March 7, 2013, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a notice and request for information concerning using additional policy levers to accelerate the adoption of electronic health record systems (EHRs). In part, the agencies are looking to increase the number of provider practices satisfying the core requirements for Meaningful Use under the Health Information Technology for Clinical and Economic Health (HITECH) Act.

In the notice, the agencies state that they are looking to accomplish this acceleration by “engaging other policy areas” within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), and may include a combination of incentives, payment adjustments, and new requirements. The agencies have identified three main areas in which to use the policy levers:

  • Low rates of EHR adoption and exchange of health information among post-acute and long-term care providers;

This post was contributed by Erik Flom and Edward Manzo, intellectual property lawyers at Husch Blackwell.   

Companies having inventions to patent should seriously consider filing their patent applications at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on or before Friday, March 15th – the “Ides of March.” This is the final day that entirely new applications can be filed and still be treated under the current patent system. There are five, simple reasons why you might want to meet the deadline:

  1. An applicant under the current system is entitled to prove a date of “invention” that is earlier than the application filing date. The earlier the date of invention, the more likely it is that you will be able to overcome some prior art references or to win a priority contest against a later inventor who filed an earlier application.
  2. Because the definition of “prior art” changes under the America Invents Act, prior art that can be cited against patent applications with an effective filing date after March 15, 2013, generally expands in scope. Unless that prior art derives from the applicant, it cannot be overcome except in narrow circumstances. Often, such prior art is not known until it arises in patent litigation. If the patent has an effective filing date before March 16, 2013, then the patent owner can attempt to overcome some of the prior art on the basis of dates of invention.

The Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services released a report last week showing that the government has achieved the highest return on investment in the 16-year history of the Health Care Fraud and Abuse (HCFAC) Program.  According to the report, for every dollar spent on healthcare-related fraud and abuse investigations in the last three years, the government recovered $7.90.

The government recovered $4.2 billion from healthcare fraud enforcement efforts in FY 2012, up from $4.1 billion in FY 2011.  The government continues to focus on reducing fraud and waste in the healthcare system.

“This was a record-breaking year for the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services in our collaborative effort to crack down on health care fraud and protect valuable taxpayer dollars,” said Attorney General Holder.　 “In the past fiscal year, our relentless pursuit of health care fraud resulted in the disruption of an array of sophisticated fraud schemes and the recovery of more taxpayer dollars than ever before.　 This report demonstrates our serious commitment to prosecuting health care fraud and safeguarding our world-class health care programs from abuse.”

The government also touted the use of fraud-fighting tools authorized by the Affordable Care Act including enhanced screenings and enrollment requirements, increased data sharing across the government, expanded recovery efforts for overpayments and greater oversight of private insurance abuses.  Screening of all 1.5 million Medicare-enrolled providers through the new Automated Provider Screening system began in FY 2012.  The report states that nearly 150,000 ineligible providers have already been eliminated from Medicare’s billing system. 

While union organizing is decreasing in so many other parts of the economy, the healthcare industry remains a target.  The Service Employees International Union in particular continues in its efforts to organize healthcare facilities throughout the United States.  A recent settlement agreement through the NLRB between the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Service…