Insights

Washington – August 17, 2023: The 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 47 firm lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 41 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

Washington – June 1, 2023: Crowell & Moring earned 82 rankings for 68 lawyers across 48 categories, as well as 37 national and statewide practice area rankings, in the Chambers USA 2023 guide. The rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and lawyers at peer firms.

Washington – August 18, 2022: The 2023 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 54 firm lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 32 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

In the latest sign that federal enforcers remain focused on increasing antitrust enforcement, last Thursday, the Justice Department (DOJ), Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealed an online portal, HealthyCompetition.gov, to encourage the public to submit reports on potential anticompetitive and monopolistic conduct in the healthcare sector.  The initiative seeks to address concerns that such behavior may affect healthcare affordability and quality, and employee wages. 

On July 25, 2023, the U.S. Departments of Labor, Treasury, and Health and Human Services (the “Tri-Agencies”) released long awaited proposed regulations (the “Proposed Rule”) and a Technical Release, which together propose new requirements for comparative analyses of nonquantitative treatment limitations (“NQTL”) under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (“MHPAEA”).  On the same day, the Tri-Agencies released their annual report to Congress on implementation of MHPAEA, as required under the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (“CAA 2021”). 

Now that the Tri-agencies have drawn back the curtains to reveal some of the inner workings of their developing Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) comparative analysis enforcement efforts, the question is: What’s next?

Crowell & Moring Partner Chris Flynn, co-chair of the firm's Health Care Practice Group, will be speaking at the ABA's 20th Annual Washington Health Law Summit, taking place the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C. December 12-13, 2022. His panel, "No Surprises Act - Has It Had the Impact We Expected?," will take place on December 13th from 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. ET, and he will be joined by Maria Salgado (Cornerstone Research) and Erin Trish (University of Southern California).

This CLE webinar will prepare healthcare litigators — either pursuing or defending managed care litigation — with strategies to leverage the emerging legal, substantive and practical considerations in common areas of dispute.

As part of Crowell & Moring’s ongoing effort to keep clients informed about the most significant developments stemming from the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (“MHPAEA”), please join us on November 18th at 12PM ET for the New Regulations and Enforcement Activity for MHPAEA: What You Need to Know webinar. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (“CAA”) amended MHPAEA by adding a requirement for plans and issuers to perform and document comparative analyses of non-quantitative treatment limitation (“NQTL”) comparative analyses. Since this amendment, federal regulators have issued numerous requests for documentation to national and regional group health plan sponsors and health insurance issuers, follow-up requests, and some determinations of non-compliance. In the meantime, state departments of insurance have initiated a multitude of market conduct examinations relating to parity compliance. The federal Department of Labor continues to pursue audits and inquiries examining MHPAEA compliance, particularly with respect to NQTLs. In addition to the enforcement activities by regulators, private litigants have been actively suing plans and issuers, alleging MHPAEA violations and seeking damages. Crowell & Moring has been on the vanguard, helping health insurance issuers respond to government inquiries and defend against lawsuits.

Health plans which participated in the health insurance exchanges in 2014, 2015, and/or 2016 are encouraged to participate to learn about their rights to receive full payment from the federal government under ACA Section 1342’s risk corridors program. The health insurance exchanges proved to be a challenging market for health plans. And the federal government’s failure to make full payments under the risk corridors program has put plans in a precarious position.

In this episode, hosts Payal Nanavati and Megan Beaver talk to Chris Flynn and Alice Hall-Partyka regarding the proposed updates to the regulations under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). We discuss the current regulatory environment, enforcement, and key takeaways from the proposed rule. For further reading, please see: