Health Law Advisor

On October 16, 2018 the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (“ONC”) announced an update to their previously provided Security Risk Assessment Tool.  According to ONC and OCR, the “tool is designed to help healthcare providers conduct a security risk assessment” as required under the HIPAA Security Rule.  ONC states that the updated tool includes additional features such as:

• Enhanced user interface
• Modular workflow
• Custom assessment logic
• Progress ...

On September 28, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released two draft guidances for industry. The purpose, according to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is to modernize the approach to clinical trial design in efforts to (1) make clinical trials more efficient while maintaining patient safety and (2) increase the amount of information concerning product safety and benefits. The two draft guidances are entitled: “Master Protocols – Efficient Clinical Trial Design Strategies to Expedite Development of Cancer Drugs and Biologics” and “Adaptive ...

Two draft guidances issued together late last month seek to increase both clinical trial efficiency and the amount of information that is available about a drug’s safety and benefits.  The two draft guidances address, respectively, adaptive designs and master protocols.  This blog post discusses FDA’s recommendations for adaptive designs; master protocols will be addressed in a subsequent blog post.

An adaptive design is a “clinical trial design that allows for prospectively planned modifications to one or more aspects of the design based on the accumulating data from ...

The American Clinical Laboratory Association (“ACLA”) challenged the final rules promulgated by the Department for Health and Human Services (“HHS”) pertaining to how the Medicare Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule (“CLFS”) payment rates are established for laboratory services (Am. Clinical Lab. Ass’n v. Azar, No. 17-2645 ABJ, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161639, 2018 WL 4539681 (D.D.C. Sept. 21, 2018)). The U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia granted HHS’ motion for summary judgment to dismiss the complaint after concluding that the court lacked subject ...

Our colleague Joshua A. Stein at Epstein Becker Green has a post on the Retail Labor and Employment Law blog that will be of interest to our readers in the health care industry: “DOJ Finally Chimes In On State of the Website Accessibility Legal Landscape – But Did Anything Really Change?”

Following is an excerpt:

As those of you who have followed my thoughts on the state of the website accessibility legal landscape over the years are well aware, businesses in all industries continue to face an onslaught of demand letters and state and federal court lawsuits (often on multiple ...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this week that it has entered into a settlement agreement with Davita Medical Holdings (Davita) for $270 million dollars to resolve certain False Claims Act liability related to Medicare Advantage risk adjustment payments.

As the settlement agreement describes, Davita acquired HealthCare Partners (HCP), a large California based independent physician association in 2012. HCP, subsequently Davita Medical Group (or Davita), operated as a medical service organization (MSO) who contracted with Medicare Advantage Organizations ...

Employers and health plans should be aware that two recent federal decisions have recognized that the non-discrimination provision in the Affordable Care Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Plans cannot categorically exclude coverage for procedures to treat gender dysphoria.

In Boyden v. Conlin, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin found that the state’s exclusion of gender reassignment-related procedures from the state employees’ health insurance coverage constitutes sex discrimination in violation of Section 1557 ...

On September 20, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) released draft guidance “Civil Money Penalties Relating to the ClinicalTrials.gov Data Bank” (“Guidance”). The purpose of this Guidance is to explain FDA’s protocol in (1) determining how the centers will identify whether responsible parties failed to comply with submission and certification requirements to the ClinicalTrials.gov or submitted false or misleading documents to the data banks and (2) deciding when, why, and what civil monetary penalties will be assessed against the ...

Please join Epstein Becker Green attorneys for a fall webinar series—via five 45-minute sessions—that will address how proactive compliance initiatives are critical to a platform’s operations, expansion efforts, and eventual monetization upon exit.

Immediate Post-Closing Operational Fixes When:  October 2, 2018 at 12:00pm – 12:45pm People:  John Eriksen, Josh Freemire, Gary Herschman, and Marc Mandelman Location:  Webinar (ET)

Add-On Diligence Strategy When:  October 9, 2018 at 12:00pm – 12:45pm People:  Josh Freemire, Anjana ...

President Trump’s recently issued Executive Order entitled “Strengthening Retirement Security In America” (the “EO”) may be helpful to businesses that sponsor or participate in multiple employer retirement plans (“MEPs”), as well as single employer plans, even if the sponsors and employers are not small business owners. While the stated purpose of the EO, which was issued on August 31, 2018 (the “EO Date”), is to “promote retirement security for America’s workers,” the EO directs attention to small business owners (less than 100 employees), noting ...