Legal & Regulatory Issues

Officials in a number of states are pushing back against new health plans with narrow provider networks through regulatory action, legislation and other methods, according to a Kaiser Health News report.

University Hospital, the 535-bed flagship facility of Salt Lake City-based University of Utah Health Care, will have to repay $256,259 to the government after a compliance review found 78 Medicare claims were incorrectly billed.

Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y., is facing a whistle-blower suit alleging hospital administrators knew incompetence at the hospital's laboratory was causing life-changing misdiagnoses, according to a New York Daily News report.

Coral Andrews, executive director of Hawaii's health insurance exchange, will resign effective Dec. 6.

HHS plans to delay the start of enrollment for the second year of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act marketplaces by one month, according to a Politico report.

California authorities are currently investigating whether Marcy Gallagher’s move from supervising attorney at the California Department of Managed Health Care to a regulatory response unit within Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente violated state laws, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

Hospital employees, former patients and visitors of Summerlin Hospital in Las Vegas have filed a suit alleging hospital missteps exposed them to tuberculosis, according to a report in the Las Vegas Sun.

Johnson & Johnson, Sandoz and 23 other pharmaceutical firms will collectively pay $88 million to settle accusations they unlawfully inflated wholesale drug prices and defrauded Louisiana's Medicaid program.

The U.S. Department of Labor has announced a new rule that repeals regulations about healthcare facilities' use of nonimmigrant foreign workers as registered nurses under the H-1A visa program.

A U.S. district judge has dismissed a False Claims Act lawsuit against St. Louis-based Ascension Health, deciding the whistle-blower who initiated the case did not have enough evidence to support his allegations, according to a Law360 report.