COVID-19 accelerated the trend of physician employment with hospitals, with recent data showing that nearly 70 percent of physicians are employed by hospitals or hospital-affiliated foundations or groups. While physician integration improves quality of care and clinical efficiency, it also blurs the separation of responsibilities between the medical staff and the employer. This can create headaches for stakeholders who want to address physician performance issues. …
A recent California First District Court of Appeal (“Court”) decision, Futterman v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., (“Futterman”) has shed light on potential liabilities for noncompliance with the State’s mental health parity requirements.1
As background, the COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for increasing already soaring behavioral health care demand, by intensifying mental health and substance use conditions across the country. In a 2020 survey by the California Health Care Foundation, Californians ranked mental health treatment as their top ...
May 11, 2023 marked a milestone in the pandemic response with the expiration of the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE). The expiration of the PHE marks an end to the wide-reaching efforts undertaken by the federal government through emergency declarations, congressional and regulatory actions that provided flexibilities for the healthcare industry to ensure continuous delivery of health services during the PHE. As the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) explained, while some of these changes are extended or made permanent, others are not. Medicare ...
Recently, the Medical Board of California circulated an open letter, known as a Prescriber Guidance Letter to all practitioners in California who prescribe opiates. The letter was authored by a statewide workgroup on Prescription Opioid Misuse and Overdose Prevention. The workgroup includes the Medical Board of California, the Board of Pharmacy, the California Department of Public Health, the DEA, DMV, California Department of Justice, California Health and Human Services, California Society of Addition Medicine, and California Healthcare Foundation, among others.
The ...
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