Legal & Regulatory Issues

Three Miami-Dade County, Fla., residents have been indicted for their roles in an alleged $2.3 million Medicare fraud scheme operated out of X-Press Center, a Detroit-area clinic that purported to specialize in providing injection and infusion therapies, according to a…

Kelly Dean Shrum, MD, an obstetrician and gynecologist based in Pine Bluff, Ark., has been indicted on charges of healthcare fraud, misbranding and money laundering by a federal grand jury, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) reported that around 1,040 qui tam cases remain unresolved because the federal government has yet to decide whether to get involved, according to a news release from Sen. Grassley.

A study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that nearly 30 percent of orthopedic surgeons failed to disclose direct financial relationships with medical device makers when instructed to do so.

California hospitals may lose the chance to access $2 billion in federal matching grants for Medicaid payments because of the state's longstanding opposition to new forms of taxation, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times.

Chester County Hospital in West Chester, Pa., has switched Medicaid HMOs to avoid a 30 percent fee cut, according to a release from Chester County Hospital.

Michael Bakst, former CEO at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, Calif., has agreed to pay $64,000 to settle allegations by the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that he arranged improper payments to…

The HHS Office of the Inspector General will monitor several specific coding issues for physicians' offices in Fiscal Year 2010, according to an extensive Work Plan released by the OIG's office.

Physicians at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wis., have raised concerns about a proposed change to the University's conflict-of-interest rules that would allow physicians to make presentations for medical device manufacturers, but still ban physicians from giving speeches for…

The American Hospital Association is encouraging hospitals to voice their support to the Department of Health and Human Services of retaining the "risk of harm" standard in the final rule on notification of a breach of unsecured protected health information,…