On Friday, April 17, President Barack Obama signed into law the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, repealing the "sustainable growth rate" formula or "SGR" which was set by Congress in 1997 to control Medicare spending by limiting annual increases...
PLDO Law Blog
Month: April 2015
Revocation of Home Health Agency’s Medicare Enrollment and Billing Privileges Upheld
The revocation of a home health agency's (HHA) Medicare enrollment and billing privileges was recently upheld by an Administrative Law Judge in the Civil Remedies Division of the Health & Human Services Departmental Appeals Board (ALJ). The ALJ determined that the...
Health Care Providers Cannot Sue States Over Low Medicaid Reimbursement Rates
On Tuesday, March 31, 2015, in a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court of the United States ("SCOTUS") ruled in the case Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, Inc., that health care providers cannot sue a state to challenge low Medicaid reimbursement rates. Initially,...
WHY BUSINESS SUCCESSION PLANNING SHOULD BE A PRIORITY IN 2025
Succession planning is a vital yet often neglected component of a comprehensive business strategy. Whether it is a start-up or a ten-year-old business, developing a succession plan is a critical step in ensuring the continuity and long-term stability of any business....
CYBERSECURITY IN 2025 – A SHIFTING LANDSCAPE
The biggest cybersecurity risk that businesses faced years ago was losing access to their data due to a ransomware attack where a hacker would lock up a company’s files and only release them back if a ransom was paid. Wisely, many businesses responded to these threats...
REAL ESTATE TITLE DISPUTES: THE PROCESS OF RECORDING “LIS PENDENS” IN RHODE ISLAND AND MASSACHUSETTS
If you or your business ends up in a dispute over real estate, it is likely that you will encounter a lis pendens. Lis pendens is Latin for “suit pending,” and it means just that, it is a statutorily governed legal tool that is often used to give notice on a...
HIGH STAKES: DRAFTING AND INTERPRETING PAYMENT REJECTIONS UNDER MASSACHUSETTS’ PROMPT PAY ACT
Under the Massachusetts Prompt Pay Act, which governs construction contracts, unless an owner meets the Act's "time and substance" requirements for rejecting a payment application from a contractor (ditto for subcontractors' applications to contractors), that...
RHODE ISLAND SUPREME COURT RULES THAT A PROPERTY’S FORECLOSURE WAS VALID DESPITE PLAINTIFF’S CLAIMS THAT MORTGAGE DOCUMENTS WERE “AMBIGUOUS”
BackgroundA recent case arose out of foreclosure proceedings that were instituted by Wells Fargo Bank (“Wells Fargo” or “defendant”) with respect to property located at 18 High Street in Bristol, Rhode Island. The property’s owner (“plaintiff”) secured the mortgage by...