As we head into a new calendar year, in the healthcare space it is worth reflecting on the events of the last few years, as a means of predicting what is likely to come. Last year, the focus in healthcare policy was very much on what will come after COVID; this year, we finally have the opportunity to review what that is. And we can confidently say that 2024 is likely to see a continuation of many of the trends in healthcare policy that we saw in 2023.Continue Reading Healthcare Policy in 2024: What’s Next?
The Supreme Court will hear argument next week in two consolidated cases that will decide what standard applies when a doctor asserts a good faith defense to a criminal prosecution for unlawful drug distribution. The argument on Tuesday, March 1, will address the convictions of two doctors accused of running “pill mills” and seeking to profit in the midst of the national opioid crisis. According to the Government, “the petitioners simply cloaked themselves in medical garb while acting as drug dealers, lining their own pockets by dispensing addictive, dangerous, and lethal drugs, aware all the while that their profit-seeking came at the expense of their patients’ health.”
SDNY Judge Jed Rakoff rejected Northwell Health’s bid for insurance coverage for its increased costs and business losses related to the COVID-19 pandemic in a 
By legislation enacted last month, on June 9, 2021, amending the New York Finance Law, Mental Hygiene Law and Executive Law, New York State established an opioid settlement fund (“OSF”). Finance Law §99-nn(1). The purpose of the OSF and the OSF advisory board created by the statute is to ensure that all opioid settlement monies are dedicated to the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders, and the recovery of substance use victims. OSF will include money paid to NYS as the result of (i) the settlement or other resolution of litigation against manufacturers, distributors, dispensers or promoters of opioids on claims arising from the manufacture, distribution, dispensing or promotion of opioids and (ii) any judgment, decree or other resolution of claims against those and “related” entities “arising out of activities alleged to have contributed to increases in opioid addiction.” Finance Law, §99-nn(4). OSF monies will include the proceeds of these claims, whether the claims were filed or unfiled, actual or potential, legal or equitable. Id. 
In continuing efforts to address problems exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, on June 18, 2021, the Governor signed legislation (S.1168-A/A.108-B) into law to address an urgent public policy priority related to clinical staffing in hospitals licensed pursuant to Article 28 of the New York State Public Health Law. This legislation requires the establishment of clinical staffing committees to create plans to more effectively distribute staff throughout general hospitals. The staffing committees must consist of at least fifty percent (50%) of registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and ancillary staff providing direct patient care, and up to fifty percent (50%) of hospital administrators, including, but not limited to, the chief financial officer, the chief nursing officer, and patient care unit directors or managers or their designees. The staffing committees shall create staffing plans with guidelines as to how many patients are assigned to each nurse, as well as how each unit is staffed with ancillary staff, based on patient needs and ratios, matrices or grids, which shall be used as the primary component of the general hospital staffing budget, provided that such staffing plans meet or exceed the terms of existing collective bargaining agreements.
In recent months, there has been a lot of attention on decisions made during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York State in regard to nursing homes. Some of that attention has focused on an order issued in the early days of the pandemic requiring nursing homes to readmit COVID-positive residents previously referred
As policymakers have responded to the COVID pandemic, they have implemented a variety of changes that create tremendous opportunities in the post-COVID world. Perhaps the most significant of these is in the area of telehealth. The remote delivery of healthcare and health-related services has tremendous implications for patient access to care and quality of outcomes,
On June 11, the New York Court of Appeals, in Andrew Carothers, M.D., P.C. v. Progressive Insurance Company, 2019 NY Slip Op 04643, decided that an insurer may withhold payment for services provided by a medical services corporation improperly controlled by non-physicians whether or not the medical services corporation acted fraudulently or with fraudulent