The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and other compliance issues will challenge boards and executives throughout 2014. Many of these challenges have legal implications. AHLA Connections recently provided a list of the top 10 health law issues in 2014 (“Top 10 Health Law Issues 2014, AHLA Connections, February 2014): ACA implementation Moving from quantity to quality […]
A bipartisan group of more than 100 representatives from the House wrote Kathleen Sibelius, Director of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week to express their concerns with the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program and strongly urged reform of the RAC process. The letter noted operational problems in the RAC program and […]
Last week we reported on a new report that found no conclusive relationship between hospital consolidation and price increases in a community. There is a new wrinkle, however. A hospital or system merger with a large physician group practice may not pass the competition/price increase test. In Idaho last month, a district judge sided with […]
Compliance and risk management efforts of hospitals and health systems should focus on indications from the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) about the direction it intends to take to investigate fraud, waste and abuse. We have talked with OIG investigators over the years who have been straightforward […]
Note: Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, this week we are publishing an abbreviated version of the newsletter. Next week look for information on Moody’s Investors Service 2014 Outlook for U.S. Not-for-Profit Hospitals. We wish you all a lovely Thanksgiving. When a hospital or system board takes steps to downsize its board, the process […]
This week’s newsletter comes a few days earlier than usual because we want our subscribers to have a full picture of the impact of the government shutdown on public health. Thanks to the American Health Lawyers Association, we can present a summary. The shutdown began on October 1, resulting from the Senate’s vote to […]
Governance practices in the for-profit sector are not much different from those in the hospital/health system not-for-profit world. Consider this on board education from Deloitte Center for Corporate Governance: “Today’s boards of directors are facing an unprecedented level of scrutiny and pressure from shareholders, the media, institutional investors, and other stakeholders. Boardroom training and development […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) continues to take steps to reduce unnecessary and burdensome regulations on hospitals, according to a recent CMS press release. “Reforms to Medicare regulations identified as unnecessary, obsolete, or excessively burdensome on hospitals and health care providers would save nearly $676 million annually, and $3.4 billion over five […]
Guest Submission: Barry Bader, Bader & Associates Physician participation on hospital boards has been a widely recommended practice for several decades—a way to strengthen hospital-medical staff relationships and build the board’s competency in clinical matters. Surveys generally show that 15% to 25% of the typical hospital board is composed of physicians, often including the […]
What is a hospital/health system board’s accountability standard for compliance in the current health reform environment? The board’s oversight responsibility remains the same, said Monte Dube, Esq., at the recent iProtean Symposium. Directors still have two principal obligations with respect to oversight: a duty to attempt in good faith to assure that 1) a corporate […]