Health Law Checkup

Post-Roe Access to Abortion in Arizona: Implications for Patients and Providers

            In a 5-4 decision on Friday, June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. As a result of the ruling, many individuals across the country will not have access to abortions within 30 days and many states have laws that will ban abortions effective immediately.[1] However, the legal landscape for […]

| 4 min read
PG
CS

Arizona Enacts “Surprise Out-Of-Network” Balance Billing Law

by Paul Giancola Arizona has joined the national trend of trying to solve the “problem” of “surprise medical out-of-network bills.” The prevalence of this concern was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine which stated that 22% of patients who visited an emergency department received a surprise bill from an out-of-network provider.  A “surprise […]

| 3 min read
PG

Does Defensive Medicine Impact the Cost of Healthcare?

By Paul Giancola Healthcare in the United States costs at least two to three times as much as healthcare in other developed countries. One of the reasons usually given is defensive medicine – doctors who order unnecessary tests and procedures due to fear of being sued.  Some also argue that such treatments unnecessarily drive up […]

| 4 min read
PG

Navigating the California Corporate Practice of Medicine “CPM” Prohibition

By Paul Giancola CPM is a variation of the statutory prohibition against unlicensed practice of medicine. CPM states enforce the prohibition against corporations practicing medicine by requiring a separation between medical/clinical decisions made by physicians and business decisions made by corporations.  This generally means that physicians cannot be employed by non-medical professional corporations or LLCs […]

| 3 min read
PG

Ninth Circuit Upholds Felony Conviction of Urologist, Under FDCA, for Reusing Single-Use Needle Guides During Prostate Biopsies (September 9, 2016)

In 2014, Las Vegas urologist, Dr. Michael Kaplan, was convicted by a federal jury for reusing single-use plastic needle guides during prostate biopsies. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit adulteration in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (“FDCA”), 21 USC Section 331(k) with the intent to defraud or mislead, and sentenced […]

| 3 min read
PG

The Physician’s Self-Referral Law – Are Changes Finally Coming?

The Physician Self-Referral Law, also known as the Stark law, prohibits a physician from referring federal health care program patients for “designated health services” to an entity in which the physician (or an immediate family member) has a financial relationship, unless an exception applies. Financial relationships include both ownership and investment interests, as well as […]

| 3 min read
PG

Arizona Supreme Court Confirms Abolishment of Original Tortfeasor Rule

For more than thirty years, Arizona law has allowed juries to allocate fault among all who contribute to an injury. On July 18, 2016, the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously re-affirmed Arizona’s commitment to “comparative fault” by reversing a trial court’s decision that attempted to reconcile “full allocation” of fault with a much older doctrine that […]

| 4 min read
PG

Supreme Court Unanimously Adopts “Implied Certification” Theory of False Claims Act (“FCA”) Liability

On June 16, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States, ex. rel. Escobar, U.S. No. 15-17, 06/16/2016, ruled unanimously in an opinion written by Justice Thomas that the “implied false certification theory” can be a basis for FCA liability. This theory treats a provider’s payment request as provider’s implied […]

| 4 min read
PG