Health Law Advisor

On February 4, 2022, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued important updated guidance in a memo (QSO-21-08-NLTC) regarding how acute and continuing care facilities—including hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, end-stage renal disease facilities, home health agencies, and hospices—manage infection control procedures in light of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

As featured on the Diagnosing Health Care Podcast:  As 2021 nears a close, acute care hospitals and health systems are facing a host of financial, regulatory, and legislative challenges. In this special episode of Diagnosing Health Care, Rick Pollack, President and CEO of the American Hospital Association, and Epstein Becker Green’s Ted Kennedy, Jr., discuss the ways in which the industry is working with the Biden administration and Congress to shape policy around critical issues, such as surprise billing, coverage expansion, value-based care, and telehealth.

Rick ...

With the passage of A.B. 30, California became the first state to require all acute-care hospitals and skilled-nursing facilities to develop and implement comprehensive workplace violence prevention plans. After years of wrangling with California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (“Cal OSHA”), the law became effective on April 1, 2018.

This statute was conceived by Cal OSHA, in conjunction with unions such as the California Nurses Association to address the high risk of workplace injuries faced by health care workers daily. Overall, health care workers ...

Ever since 1974, when the NLRB (“Board”) first took jurisdiction over health care institutions, the Board has paid particular attention to the impact of union organizing on the delivery of healthcare in this industry in general  and of acute care hospitals in particular.  When the Act was first amended in 1974, Congress stated its objective at that time was to avoid a “proliferation of bargaining units” as one method to limit the inevitable disruption created by numerous elections and negotiations while at the same time balancing employee’s opportunity to exercise its ...