Archive for the ‘Health Care’ Category

In an effort to accomplish better care coordination, improve quality and lower costs, doctors and hospitals are using comprehensive clinical integration agreements (CCIA).  Please click here to read an article I co-authored with Debbie Salas-Lopez, M.D., M.P.H., for MD News, where I discuss the incentives in using CCIAs.

For more information about CCIAs, please contact Sandra Jarva Weiss at sjarvaweiss@nmmlaw.com.

A number of factors play into the significant increase of mergers and acquisitions in the health care industry. Please click here to read an article I authored for MD News, where I discuss why consolidation is especially attractive, and how health care reform is a key factor.

For more information about health care provider consolidation, please contact Brian Slough at bslough@nmmlaw.com.

With all of the discussion around the uncertain future of the Affordable Care Act, it seems change is imminent for physicians and other providers.  Please click here to read an article I authored for MD News where I discuss the variety of different value-based reimbursement models adopted by the ACA, namely payment bundling.

For more information about the Affordable Care Act, please contact me at lsorrentino@nmmlaw.com.

Just when you thought your days of paying others’ medical expenses were behind you, Pennsylvania Courts are holding you responsible for your elderly parents’ care.  Please click here to read an article I authored for Lehigh Valley Woman where I discuss the implications of the Filial Support Law.

For more information about the Filial Support Law, please contact Rebecca Price at rprice@nmmlaw.com.

Norris McLaughlin & Marcus, P.A., will sponsor a Celebrity Bartending Night on September 13, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m., at Sangria in Allentown.  Attorneys Matt Sorrentino, Kate Curcio, and Lauren Sorrentino will serve the drinks, and twenty percent of the proceeds and all tips will benefit The Children’s Hospital at Lehigh Valley Hospital.  There is no charge to attend and all are welcome.

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On February 22, 2012, President Obama signed the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act – a version that no longer contained provisions to ease restrictions on the operation and expansion of physician-owned hospitals. Please click here to read an article I authored for MD News, where I discuss the obstacles facing physician-owned hospitals.

For more information about restrictions on physician-owned hospitals, please contact Peter Lehr at plehr@nmmlaw.com.

An ambulatory surgical center (ASC), like all facilities licensed under the Pennsylvania Health Care Facilities Act, must give the Department of Health (DOH) at least thirty (30) days prior written notice of any change involving five percent (5%) or more of its existing ownership.  That is all that the governing regulations contained in Part IV of Title 28 in the Pennsylvania Code have to say on the subject.  It sounds so very simple right?  If you are in the process of transferring ownership in a health care facility, or have already done so without providing DOH with notice of the transaction, you should be warned that much more is actually required.

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With all of the recent discussion around the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”), and recognizing that on March 31, 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published over 400 pages of proposed regulations for Accountable Care Organizations (“ACOs”) – which have been met with a lukewarm reception from the provider industry – it may be useful to ask a very basic question:  When it comes to physicians, can accountability be measured, and if so, how will it be measured?  Please click here to read an article I authored for MD News where I discuss where accountability lies and what this new act means to physicians’ practices whether large or small.

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There is a long line of lawsuits in which the False Claims Act has been used to punish an assortment of billing and statutory violations by medical professionals and institutions – since January of 2009, over $2.3 billion has been recovered for these violations. Please click here to read an article I authored with my colleague Theodore Margolis for MD News, where I discuss how to prevent and succeed with a False Claims Act case.

For more information about the False Claims Act, please contact Sandra Jarva Weiss at sjarvaweiss@nmmlaw.com.