Health Care Law Blog

Hot Off the Presses: Foster Swift Health Care Law Newsletter

The latest edition of the Foster Swift Health Care Law Newsletter has just been released.  Topics include Electronic Health Records, Medicare Reimbursement for Resident Research and Hospital Community Needs Assessments.  In order to whet your appetite, below is a brief summary of the articles:

• Electronic Health Records.  Like most things in society, it will likely become the norm for medical records to be in an electronic format.  Physicians and other health professionals should, at the very least, consider participating in the Electronic Health Record ("EHR") incentive program.  This article discusses the steps that must be followed to take advantage of the full extent of incentives provided to eligible professionals who use EHR.
• Resident Research. Teaching hospitals receive some reimbursement from Medicare to compensate for the inefficiencies and extra staffing demands incurred in training their residents.  The issue presented in a recently decided 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals case was whether the federal government must reimburse teaching hospitals for the time their residents spent conducting pure research in the 1990s.  This article provides an in-depth analysis of this case and discusses several potential ramifications it may have on resident research going forward.
• Community Needs Assessments. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires hospitals to create a community health needs assessment ("Community Assessment") in order to be recognized, or continue being recognized, as a 501(c)(3) entity.  Although the requirements are imposed on hospitals for tax years following March of 2012, it is not too early to begin planning.  This article provides an overview of the steps hospitals must take to create and implement a Community Assessment plan.
• Michigan Exchange Planning.  The Michigan Health Insurance Exchange will play a vital role in opening health care access and insurance coverage for hundreds of thousands of Michigan citizens and their families.  The Michigan stakeholder workgroup, created to advise on the content, implementation and structure of Michigan's Exchange, issued its final report on June 17, 2011. This article summarizes the recommendations given in the report and provides several insights to the workgroup process as a whole.

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Categories: Billing/Payment, Electronic Health Records, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance Exchange, HITECH Act, Hospitals, Medicare/Medicaid, Physicians