The April 28, 2008 edition of the North Carolina Healthcare Report is now available. Please click here. document.getElementById(“post-193-blankimage”).onload();

The Health Services Council of the Charlotte Chamber will host its 1st Annual Charlotte Healthcare Conference on September 10, 2008 at the Westin Hotel here in Charlotte.  The event will focus on providing highly relevant and useful information for healthcare providers, employers of all sizes, and anyone involved in the biotechnology and life sciences industries [...]

In an interim final rule promulgated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services a 3-year moratorium was placed on the establishment of new LTCHs and LTCH satellite facilities and on increases in beds in existing LTCHs and LTCH satellite facilities.  This interim final rule with comment period also implements a 3-year delay in the [...]

We are pleased to announce that former N.C. Governor Jim Martin has joined McGuireWoods Consulting and will be working in our Charlotte office.  We are delighted to welcome former Governor Martin to McGuireWoods.  Mr. Martin was previously with Carolinas Healthcare System here in Charlotte. document.getElementById(“post-34-blankimage”).onload();

A bill in the North Carolina House of Representatives, H.R. 2196, would require the Division of Medical Assistance of the Department of Health and Human Services to pay the same rate to long-term acute care hospitals as it pays to short-term acute care hospitals that provide services to Medicaid patients.    If passed, the new [...]

Medcath Corp. and its partner in Dayton Heart Hospital have closed on the sale of the facility to Good Samaritan Hospital.  Reported in the Charlotte Business Journal on May 19, 2008, Ohio-based Good Samaritan purchased the specialty-heart hospital for $55 million.  Net proceeds to MedCath are expected to total about $32 million, after income-tax expenses [...]

The federal Technical Advisory Group (“TAG”) for the EMTALA issued in a recent report to the U.S. DHHS that included several recommendations for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”).  Among the advisory group’s high-priority recommendations in the report are: §         CMS should continue to not require doctors to take emergency calls as a [...]

In the last year, there have been at least five health care fraud settlements in excess of $100 million each and total recoveries from health care providers amounting to $2 billion.  Two of my colleagues in the Health Care Department in the Chicago office of McGuireWoods LLP, Gretchen Townshend and Elizabeth Campbell, recently authored an [...]

The April 4, 2008 edition of the North Carolina Healthcare Report is now available.  Please click here. document.getElementById(“post-64-blankimage”).onload();

A federal judge has recently given the go-ahead for a very high profile lawsuit in South Carolina which threatens a hospital with a False Claims Act suit brought by a physician on behalf of the United States government and now a federal investigation.  The Hospital in question is Tuomey Regional Medical Center in Sumter, South [...]

The University of North Carolina Board of Governors last week endorsed a plan to expand the UNC School of Medicine to Charlotte beginning in 2011.  The new plan involves 3rd and 4th year rotations at Carolinas Medical Center here in Charlotte.  The plan also involves the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, University [...]

On Friday, April 25th from 7:30 am to 2 pm, the Mecklenburg County Health Department will host its Annual State of the Public Health Forum entitled “Beyond Access to Care: Communities Engaged in Appropriate Care”.  The event will be held at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church at 3400 Beatties Ford Road in Charlotte.  For more information [...]

 I am honored and delighted to announce that I have been appointed to the Board of Directors for the Charlotte Chambers Health Services Council.  The goal of the Health Services Council is two fold:  to promote the growth of the healthcare industry in the Charlotte area as well as improve access to healthcare and to [...]

The United States Department of Justice recently agreed to a $5.3 million settlement agreement with New Jersey hospital system Cathedral Healthcare System Inc., which is based in Newark.  The settlement is being made to resolve allegations that the hospital defrauded the Medicare program in connection with improperly inflating charges for inpatient and outpatient care to [...]

 A recent New York Times article addressed recent Senate and House legislation aimed at stopping the proliferation of physician-owned hospitals, arguing that physician-owned hospitals drive up healthcare costs by encouraging physicians to order more procedures.  On three occasions in the last ten months, either the House or the Senate has approved legislation that would bar [...]

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) recently issued an advisory opinion that a hospital system’s proposal to license a custom software interface for use by physicians on its medical staffs does not constitute a “compensation arrangement” for purposes of the self-referral prohibition in the Stark law. The facts underlying the opinion included an [...]

We are delighted to announce that McGuireWoods LLP and Charlotte-based Helms Mulliss & Wicker, PLLC have merged their practices.  The combined firm will be known as McGuireWoods LLP. The merger was effective at the close of business on March 31, 2008.  McGuireWoods now has approximately 160 lawyers in Charlotte following completion of the merger.  With [...]