Just over one year ago, I wrote about the Department of Health and Human Service’s (“HHS”) $105 million award to support 1,333 federally qualified health centers (“Health Centers”) across the United States improve the quality of comprehensive care provided to patients. It seems like déjà vu, as it was announced last month that HHS set aside $125 million in
Continue Reading Community Health Centers Receive Quality Improvement Grants
This post is written in connection with my colleague Vanessa Bongiorno’s recent post, where she eloquently summarized the New York Department of Health’s (“DOH”) findings of the multi-agency study on the impact of regulated adult-use marijuana in New York.
In the report, DOH found that even though marijuana use does contain risks, there are benefits associated with
Continue Reading New York Creates Workgroup for Regulated Adult-Use Marijuana
This past July 26, 2018 was the 28th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), landmark civil rights legislation designed to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities. Specifically, the ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation and telecommunications. It protects anyone with a “disability”, defined
Continue Reading “Able New York”: The Latest ADA-Related Initiative May Create New Requirements for Long Term Care Providers
The recent New York Court of Appeals decision in Stega v. New York Downtown Hospital provides strong support for defamation claims arising out of witness testimony in investigations and quasi-judicial hearings. In Stega, the Court held that statements made in administrative proceedings that allegedly defame a person are not absolutely immune where the person has no recourse to challenge
Continue Reading NY Court of Appeals Rejects Hospital’s Bid To Cloak Allegedly Defamatory FDA Investigation Statements With Absolute Immunity
In January 2018, during the Executive budget address, Governor Cuomo directed the Department of Health (DOH) to review the health, criminal justice and economic impacts of regulating recreational marijuana in New York. In doing so, he requested DOH to act in consultation with other NYS agencies and to evaluate the experience, consequences and effects of legalized marijuana in neighboring
Continue Reading NYS Department of Health Report Green Lights Legalization of Marijuana
This post marks the end of our series on recent activity by the New York State Legislature in the health sector (introduced here), and follows posts on legislation impacting the pharmaceutical industry (here), hospitals (here), long term care and aging (here), behavioral health (here), and intellectual/developmental disability services (here
Our series highlighting recent activity by the NYS Legislature continues with a recap of bills passed in 2018 that relate to behavioral health. This synopsis follows previous summaries we have done concerning pharmacy (here), hospitals (here), long term care and aging (here).
Except where otherwise noted, these bills await action by the Governor.
Mental
Continue Reading Legislation Affecting Behavioral Health
The latest installation in our series on legislation recently passed by the New York State Legislature (introduced here) addresses legislation in the long term care and aging space. It follows upon descriptions of legislation in the pharmacy space (here) and hospital space (here). Like those areas, the long term care area was impacted by
Continue Reading Legislation Affecting Long Term Care & Aging
The scheduled 2018 New York State Legislative Session concluded last week amid many of the same speculations and controversies that have characterized all of the Legislature’s activities in recent years. Once again, much of the activity turned on the Legislature’s tense relationship with the Governor, ongoing questions about control of the Senate, and a backdrop of corruption trials that continue
Continue Reading Healthcare Bills Passed in the 2018 Legislative Session
Earlier this month the New York State Department of Health released the first results of its recently adopted Medicaid redesign efforts, the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (“DSRIP”), in four core areas: (1) metric performance, (2) success of projects, (3) total Medicaid spending and (4) managed care expenditures. The passing scores stem from the collaborative efforts of the Performing
Continue Reading New York State Receives Passing Grades On Its First DSRIP Report Card