Article
Published 04/05/2021
Services Employment Litigation
Alert
Published 04/05/2021
By Sarah Lockwood (Sally) Church, Dasha G. Brockmeyer, Matthew M. Haar, James A. Morsch
Industries Health Care | Insurance
Services Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, enacted at the end of 2020 includes the No Surprises Act (“Act”), amending the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, and the Public Health Services Act. The Act generally takes effect on January 1, 2022 and imposes requirements on group health plans, health insurance issuers offering group or individual coverage and providers of health care services. For these purposes, a group health plan is any plan that provides medical care, other than a plan that provides excepted benefits (such as dental or vision...
Article
Published 04/02/2021
Industries Real Estate
Alert
Published 04/02/2021
Services Litigation
This month’s Friday Five covers federal guidelines for extension of ERISA claim deadlines due to the pandemic, as well as cases relating to: whether an expert witness who changes their opinion throughout the course of the claim review and appeal process should be deemed credible; the extent to which courts rely upon the Dictionary of Occupational Titles; dismissal of an LTD claim based on failure to exhaust administrative remedies, despite a plaintiff’s argument that filing an ERISA claim would have been futile; and an analysis of whether an insurer’s claim against a claimant for fraudulent...
Blog Post
Published 04/02/2021
By Colleen Fox, Ryan L. DiClemente
Blog Post
Published 03/31/2021
By Rohit Kapuria, Steven C. Reingold
Alert
Published 03/30/2021
By Bruce D. Armon, Samantha R. Gross
Industries Health Care | HIPAA / Health Information Privacy and Security
On March 24th and March 26th, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced it settled its respective seventeenth and eighteenth enforcement actions as part of its HIPAA Right of Access Initiative (the “Initiative”). OCR announced the Initiative to support individuals’ right to easily and timely access their health information at a reasonable cost under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) Privacy Rule’s right of access standard. The right of access standard requires a HIPAA-covered entity to take...
Blog Post
Published 03/30/2021
By Garrett P. Buttrey, Jason Tremblay
Alert
Published 03/29/2021
By Jennifer L. Beidel, Joseph Sweeny, Lauren Farruggia, Kelsey Marron
Industries Health Care
Services White Collar and Government Enforcement
On November 24, 2020, the 11th Circuit issued a notable decision in United States v. Shah , 981 F.3d 920 (11th. Cir. 2020), which clarifies whether, in order to obtain a conviction under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (“AKS”), the government must prove a defendant’s motivation for accepting kickback payments. The Court held that the statute does not require proof of the defendant’s motivation, after this point was conceded by both parties at oral argument. Dr. Alap Shah (“Shah”), a podiatrist from Columbus, Georgia, was convicted in the District Court of the Southern District of Florida...
Alert
Published 03/29/2021
By Kyle Gray, Patrick F. Nugent
Industries Energy
On March 18, 2021, FERC issued a final rule , effective 90 days after publication in the Federal Register, establishing a categorical one-year deadline for certifying authorities (usually state agencies) to act on a request for a water quality certification under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act for proposed natural gas and LNG projects. FERC’s final rule rejects the use of a case-by-case waiver analysis because FERC determined that a bright-line one-year waiver deadline provides needed certainty for a process that has often been confounding and the subject of much litigation. Section 401...
Article
Published 03/29/2021
Services Force Majeure Litigation
Article
Published 03/18/2021
Services Public Finance
Article
Published 03/18/2021
Industries Real Estate
Blog Post
Published 03/18/2021
By Alexander Reich, Jason Tremblay
Article
Published 03/17/2021
Services Labor and Employment
Blog Post
Published 03/17/2021
By Robert L. Duston, Angella N. Middleton
