Archive for the ‘Health Care Reform’ Category

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and its new Innovation Center, is rolling out a program called Bundled Payments, which seeks to provide one lump-sum payment to all providers and physicians involved in an "episode" of care. An episode of care for a [...]

Though the Department of Health and Human Services has announced it will stop granting waivers from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) at the end of this September, this past week it granted another 106 of them. This brings the total of all waivers so far to 1472. The waivers are usually for [...]

When earlier this year the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) hit Cignet Health with a $4.3 million civil penalty, it represented the opening volley in teethier enforcement of the HIPAA Privacy Rule under a new law that vastly increased the potential for fines. Cignet received the first-ever civil penalty under 2009's Health Information Technology for [...]

This week the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) added several new, no-cost-to-patients preventive services to the list it aggregates as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The newly added services for women will have to be offered with no co-pay by all health insurance policies on their first plan [...]

Following a Circuit Court ruling that the individual mandate to purchase health insurance contained in Obamacare is constitutional, the Thomas More Law Center has petitioned the Supreme Court to review the lower court's decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and its mandate. Usually, the Supreme Court agrees to such reviews only [...]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is currently receiving public commentary on a proposed rule to expand the right of individuals to demand and receive "access reports" identifying who accessed their protected health information and why. Under the Health Insurance Accountability and Portability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, individuals currently have a right to [...]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through its Office of Civil Rights (OCR), has awarded a $9-million contract to KPMG to help audit 150 covered entities and business associates for adherence to HIPAA security and privacy standards. According to language in the contract, "Site visits conducted as part of every audit would include [...]

In a convoluted statement, the Massachusetts Attorney General is proposing a variation of price controls on health care in the state. AG Martha Coakley, who famously lost to Scott Brown in the Senate election of 2010, issued a report that recommended "at least setting temporary statutory restrictions on how much prices may vary for comparable [...]

Health care premium protection is on its way. Since 1999, the cost of health insurance coverage for a family of four has climbed 131 percent. Many times, insurance companies have been able to raise rates without explaining their actions to regulators or the public or justifying the reasons for their high premiums. In most cases, [...]

For Americans with pre-existing conditions, finding affordable, guaranteed, unrestricted health care just got easier and cheaper, thanks to a federal initiative. When Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in 2010, the issue of health insurance for those with pre-existing health conditions was dealt with in two ways: First, when PPACA is [...]