Angela Gichinga

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On July 27, 2023, California’s Office of Health Care Access and Information (the “Office”) released its long-awaited proposed regulations on the notice requirements for material health care transactions in California. The anticipated regulations follow the passing of SB 184 on June 30, 2022, which, in part, created the Office and granted it the authority to collect and analyze data related to health care costs, specifically via monitoring mergers and acquisitions in the health care industry. Following the lead of states like New York, whose wide-range health care transaction requirements were discussed in a previous blog post, California seeks to address the increasing costs of health care services by imposing significant notice and review requirements for mergers and acquisitions beginning in 2024.
Continue Reading California Releases Proposed Regulations on Health Care Transaction Notice Requirements

On February 6, 2023, a judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (“Texas District Court”) ruled in favor of the Texas Medical Association (“TMA”) and against the United States Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services (the “Departments”) over a challenge to the continued special status given…

We previously noted that the regulations implementing the No Surprises Act (“NSA”) appeared to be inconsistent with the NSA because they seemed to establish the qualifying payment amount (“QPA”) as the appropriate payment amount to be used in arbitrations by certified IDR entities (viz. the regulation-established independent dispute resolution (“IDR”) process) between plans and providers, and that the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (“Texas District Court”) vacated portions of the NSA regulations relating to the QPA for purposes of the IDR process.  The Federal government recently responded to the Texas District Court—by removing such portions of the NSA regulations.
Continue Reading The Saga of the No Surprises Act Continues to be … Surprising

Fifty years of legal precedent established by Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and Planned Parenthood of Southern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), were overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, holding that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion and leaving abortion laws to individual states…

On December 31, 2021, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed landmark legislation to increase the transparency of prescription drug pricing and to establish requirements on pharmacy middlemen. This new law is amongst 100 [1] state bills introduced in 2021 that shed light on the business practices of pharmacy benefit managers (PBM). In an approval memo,…

On November 2, 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a final rule (“Final Rule”) that advances the shift from paying for Medicare home health services based on volume to a system that pays based on value. In addition to other matters, the Final Rule expands the HHVBP Model from 9 states…

This post reviews Part II of the federal No Surprises Act regulations.  In previous publications, we have commented upon the No Surprises Act, and Part I of the regulations.

The “Requirements Related to Surprise Billing; Part II” (the “Part II Rule”), published on October 7, 2021, is the second interim final rule (IFR) implementing the No Surprises Act, following a prior No Surprises Act IFR (the “Part I Rule”) published on July 13, 2021.  Both of these regulations are generally set to take effect on January 1, 2022.

In this post, we outline how the Part II Rule addresses: (A) the independent dispute resolution (IDR) and open negotiation processes for health plans and other payers (“Plans”), (B) patient-provider dispute resolution processes for uninsured individuals, and (C) the expansion of the federal external review provisions of the Affordable Care Act to cover disputes regarding the application of the No Surprises Act.Continue Reading The Devil may be in the Details of the Part II No Surprises Act IFR