It is no surprise that, given the current health care climate, providers who were unregulated just a few years ago are now subject to certification and licensure requirements.

In 2012, thirty-two organizations were selected to participate as “Pioneers” in a pilot Accountable Care Organization (“ACO”) program created through the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”).  The program’s goals were to revolutionize the health system and reduce medical costs by basing physician and hospital pay on quality rather than quantity.

Health care businesses are subject to complex rules and regulations, most of which are constantly changing. Providers of all types and sizes continually face licensure issues and compliance requirements. There are few industries as regulated as health care, but that is not to say that providers stand alone in the issues they face. In fact, one type of industry has a markedly similar oversight process: daycare centers.

There has been a surge of nursing lawsuits in recent years, with nurses arguing they have been denied overtime pay, meal breaks, and fair wages as guaranteed to them by the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The FLSA makes a distinction between exempt and non-exempt employees, with the latter receiving overtime and wage protection.

“The single biggest and most common compliance weakness is the lack of a timely and thorough risk analysis.”

As a result of the intricate details and requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), it comes as no surprise that HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules can cause challenges and confusion for even the most sophisticated providers. With this in mind, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) has recently provided tools meant to educate both consumers and providers on HIPAA.

On March 25, 2013, Governor Steve Beshear signed House Bill 104, a bill that will change how Physician Assistants (“PAs”) practice in the Commonwealth. Under former law, a PA had to be directly supervised in by a doctor in the first eighteen months of their medical practice. Kentucky had the longest supervision requirement of any state in the U.S.

Urinalysis, also referred to as urine drug screening, is an important procedure that health providers use for several reasons: to monitor patients’ medication compliance, detect drug abuse, or identify the presence of disease. There are numerous implications that accompany a urinalysis examination though, and health providers are sometimes left wondering if they should hand over the cup to patients.

On October 16, 2012, the Medicare Audit Improvement Act of 2012[1] was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Representative Sam Graves. The purpose of this legislation is to reform the Medicare auditing program. This legislation aims to improve the accuracy and transparency of Medicare audits of hospitals as well as increase the accountability of Recovery Audit Contractors (“RAC”).[2]

Before a covered entity can use cloud storage for ePHI, the covered entity must enter into a business associate agreement (BAA) with the cloud vendor.[i]  It seems that there is some uncertainty surrounding this requirement, with some cloud vendors taking the position that a BAA is unnecessary for passive storage of ePHI or that they qualify for an exception under HITECH Act as a personal health records vendor.