With the ink now dry on The Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (passed in early 2013) which, among other things, raised the capital gains tax rate from 15% to 20% and the top income tax bracket of “high income” Americans from 35% to 39.6%, Senate Democrats have now proposed the “American Family Economic Protection Act” which defers the sequestration for the remainder of 2013 by (i) raising the income tax on millionaires ($55 billion over 10 years), (ii) increasing future military cuts ($27 ...
On March 8, 2013, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released a new version of Form I-9 with a revision date of 03/08/2013. Employers are required to use the new Form I-9 no later than May 7, 2013, for all new hires and rehires, as well as to re-verify an employee’s identity and continued employment eligibility. Employers are not required to replace prior I-9 forms that were used before May 7, 2013 ...
Just over one year ago, new ATM regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became enforceable. Since virtually the stroke of midnight on March 15, 2012, banks, credit unions and other ATM operators have been served with lawsuits alleging noncompliance with certain of those new ADA regulations, particularly those requiring auxiliary aids and services for ATM users who are blind or have low vision ...
The Tennessee General Assembly has taken from employers the right to discipline employees for bringing guns to work and given to employees a new exception to the at-will rule. On March 14, 2013, Governor Bill Haslam signed Senate Bill 142, commonly referred to as the “Guns in Trunks” legislation, which will take effect July 1, 2013 ...
Over the past decade, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) has repeatedly emphasized the important role that Boards of Directors play in ensuring that their organizations have robust and effective compliance programs. At the same time, state and federal law enforcement agencies have shown a growing interest in the role of healthcare Boards when they investigate organizations for suspected healthcare fraud ...
In a significant victory for healthcare providers, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday overturned an $11.1 million False Claims Act (FCA) judgment against Atlanta-based medical imaging company MedQuest Associates, Inc. and three of its Nashville, Tennessee-area imaging facilities. The Court held that the company did not violate the FCA by failing to comply with Medicare supervising-physician regulations or Medicare enrollment regulations following a change of ownership ...
Today the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued an Updated Special Advisory Opinion addressing the recommended scope and frequency of exclusion checks of employees and contractors. The Advisory Opinion provides important and practical guidance to assist healthcare providers seeking to protect their businesses against the risk of employing or contracting with excluded individuals and entities ...
Following a month-long retrial, a South Carolina jury has concluded that Tuomey Healthcare System, Inc. (Tuomey) violated the Stark Law and the False Claims Act by illegally paying referring physicians. The jury found that Tuomey’s compensation arrangements with referring physicians were impermissible under the Stark Law, resulting in almost 22,000 false claims and more than $39 million in overpayments ...
Earlier this month, the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a suit against Vitas Hospice Services, L.L.C. and its subsidiary entities (“Vitas”) alleging that Vitas submitted false claims for hospice services which were excessive, unnecessary, or not provided, and also alleging that Vitas admitted patients to hospice who were not terminally ill ...
The Alabama Department of Revenue (“Department”) recently issued a proposed regulation, Prop. Ala. Admin. Code 810-6-5-.05.02 which, if approved, will dramatically alter the obligation of sellers to collect and remit local sales and use tax imposed by Alabama cities and counties. By regulatory fiat, not supported by legislative changes, the Department seeks to reverse decades of tax history and positions ...
The Budget. The 83rd Texas Legislative Session convened on January 8th with news of a better-than-anticipated revenue estimate, an unusually high number of new and second-term legislators, and less controversy and fanfare than observers have come to expect at the start of the biennial, 140-day process. In mid-March, only days before the bill became due, lawmakers passed and the Governor signed legislation to fill the $4 ...
On June 13, 2013, in a seminal case on the patentability of the genetic code, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that “naturally occurring DNA … is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated, but that cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occurring.” See Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Inc. (2013) ...
Physicians in Texas can receive up to $160,000 for the repayment of medical school loan debt through a state program that received a significant increase in funding earlier this year. To be eligible, physicians need to apply by Nov. 30, 2013 and agree to provide four consecutive years of service in a federally designated Health Professional Shortage Area ...
Starting in January 2014, everyone will be required to purchase health insurance. If you are someone whose company already provides you with insurance, you can probably skip this article. But if you are elderly, purchase your insurance privately, or are one of the 24.2 percent of Texans without health insurance, you might want to read on ...
The 83rd Texas Legislature passed legislation to simplify the process by which physicians supervise and delegate to Physician Assistants (PAs) and Advance Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs). This article summarizes the rules recently adopted by the Texas Medical Board (TMB) to implement SB 406 (83R) ...
St. Luke’s Health System’s 2012 acquisition of Saltzer Medical Group, Idaho’s largest independent multi-specialty physician practice group, violated federal and state antitrust laws according to a U.S. District Court holding issued on Friday, January 24, 2014. The Court ordered divestiture of the practice. The FTC and the Idaho Attorney General filed the Complaint seeking to block the sale on March 12, 2013. In response, St ...
Scoring a win against a pandemic of class actions, Cadence Bank defeated a putative class action that had accused the bank of indifference to the Americans with Disabilities Act at its ATMs. The Plaintiff alleged that an ATM at one branch was not accessible, as required by standards that the banking and ATM industries have endeavored to meet since they became effective on March 15, 2012 ...
The Affordable Care Act, in a largely overlooked provision, bestowed broad powers on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to impose a moratorium on the enrollment of new Medicare or Medicaid providers, including whole categories of providers in certain geographic locations ...
CMS recently announced yet another delay to the full implementation of “two midnight rule,” which revises its longstanding guidance to hospitals and physicians relating to when hospital inpatient admissions are deemed to be reasonable and necessary for payment under Medicare Part A. Specifically, this latest “delay” is the result of CMS’s extension of the “Probe & Educate Period,” a period of partial non-enforcement for the two midnight rule requirements, until September 30, 2014 ...
In case you missed it, there was an interesting piece in the January/February issue of Transaction Trends, the Electronic Transactions Association’s official publication. I highly recommend it, as it was a good look ahead. The feature, “Putting the ‘L’ in M-Commerce” was an interview with several prominent industry executives about loyalty cards and programs. Today, however, loyalty card programs are fragmented, to put it politely ...
On March 11, 2014, Alabama formally created an independent tax tribunal and implemented additional procedural changes through the enactment of the Alabama Taxpayer Fairness Act (“Act”), which becomes effective October 1, 2014. The Alabama Senate approved legislation creating the Act on February 27, followed by House approval on March 4 and formal enactment by Governor Robert Bentley on March 11 ...
Union Organizing Efforts in the Southeast Appear to be on the Rise - and in an Increasingly Union-Friendly Environment In the labor world, 2014 has started out with a bang. We have seen a hotly contested union election at Volkswagen in Chattanooga make national news culminating in an employer victory. Commentators have openly questioned whether this portends an era of reinvigorated union efforts to gain a toehold in the historically company friendly Southeast ...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently released a proposed rule on the definition of “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act. If enacted, the rule could create significant new hurdles for real estate development projects that are near streams or wetlands by effectively removing permitting authority from state agencies and establishing federal oversight by the EPA and the Corps ...
Yesterday, July 22, 2014, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing at which the so-called corporate inversions of U.S. multinationals were a key topic. The hearing followed U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew’s July 15 letter to congressional tax writers urging immediate legislative action to stop corporate inversions of U.S. companies. Generally, a corporate inversion is a transaction in which a U.S. multinational group with a U.S. parent corporation restructures so that the U.S ...
