Articles and Blogs

During a speech on March 4, 2019, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar announced that the Trump administration plans to overhaul the Medicare payment system for certain dialysis services provided to patients with end-stage renal disease. The overhaul, as envisioned, would incentivize moving the place of treatment from outpatient clinics to home... READ MORE

Over the years, there have been a number of federal cases involving allegations that health care providers used improper real estate arrangements to induce referrals. Recently, two real estate-related cases have made headlines. Hospitals should pay careful consideration to the following two cases. Serial Whistleblower Seeks to Overturn Ruling Involving Alleged Cash-Flow Subsidies under... READ MORE

S&P Global Ratings, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service recently released their Nonprofit Healthcare 2019 Outlooks, which are largely consistent with 2018, despite changes in the health care industry over the past year. Fitch and Moody’s issued negative outlooks for the nonprofit health care sector, while S&P’s sector outlook was stable. Despite their differing... READ MORE

The Oregon State Legislature is considering a bill that bases the determination of tax-exemption for hospital property on the relationship between hospital executives’ compensation and the amount of charity care provided by the hospital. While a number of other states have passed legislation that threatens a hospital’s property tax-exempt status where a hospital fails... READ MORE

Health care providers can learn a thing or two from Starbucks. Similar to Starbucks, health care providers are creditworthy and desirable tenants and should leverage that desirability to negotiate better leases. These five strategies have helped make Starbucks a leader is the retail world, and health care providers would do well to implement the... READ MORE

On December 22, 2017, the president signed into law H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “TCJA”), which will apply to 2018 income for tax filings in 2019. The TCJA includes a number of commercial real estate provisions, several of which could create significant new opportunities specific to the health care sector.... READ MORE

In recent years, increasing numbers of municipalities have asked health care entities that might otherwise be exempt from property taxes to enter into payment in lieu of taxes agreements (“PILOTs”). While most prevalent in the Northeast Region of the country, PILOTs are expanding in popularity nationwide as municipalities seek to expand their budgets by... READ MORE

Overview On October 30, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) announced the final rule (“Final Rule”)1 in follow up to the proposed rule published in July 2015 pertaining to payment policies under the Physician Fee Schedule for CY 2016 (“Proposed Rule”). In addition to changes to the Physician Fee Schedule and other... READ MORE

A trend in real estate-related False Claims Act litigation should put hospitals and other health care providers on notice that relators are looking for big paydays for non-compliant real estate arrangements. The relators described in this article are real estate professionals who are bringing technically complex claims with little to no institutional knowledge of... READ MORE

Overview On July 8, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published a proposed rule pertaining to payment policies under the Physician Fee Schedule for CY 2016 (“Proposed Rule”).1 In addition to changes to the Physician Fee Schedule and other Medicare Part B payment policies, the Proposed Rule addresses modifications to the Stark... READ MORE