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 – July 22, 2022:  Crowell & Moring is advising Amazon on health care and related matters in its acquisition of One Medical for approximately $3.9 billion. Completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published the General Compliance Program Guidance (GCPG) on November 6, 2023. The GCPG provides updated descriptions of the seven elements of an effective compliance program that health care entities have long relied upon. The new guidance also includes recommendations to conduct annual internal risk assessments, to consider quality of care as a component of the compliance program, and to emphasize the importance of a board’s and executive leadership’s oversight of compliance.

An amendment to New York’s Certificate of Need (CON) law, set to go into effect on June 22, 2023, will require every CON application to include a “health equity impact assessment.”  The new law, N.Y. Public Health Law § 2802-b, requires an assessment be prepared by an independent entity that addresses whether, and if so how, “a project will improve access to hospital services and health care, health equity and reduction of health disparities.” The assessment must also make “particular reference to members of medically underserved groups, in the applicant’s service area.” Importantly, this new requirement does not apply to CON applications filed before June 22, 2023. To date, the Department of Health (DOH) has not yet issued implementing regulations.

On July 29, 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule that updates Medicare payment policies and rates for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and enacts changes to the SNF Quality Reporting Program and the SNF Value-Based Purchasing Program beginning in FY 2023.

The Supreme Court has taken up two trademark cases this term. In the first case, Andrei Iancu v. Erik Brunetti,18-302 (SCOTUS), the Court will review the government ban on Fuct and other "scandalous" trademarks. In the second, Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, Case No. 17-1657, cert. granted (Oct. 26, 2018), the Court will address the effect a trademark owner's bankruptcy on a licensee's right to continue to use a mark licensed before the bankruptcy was filed. This CLE will have oral arguments from both cases presented before a panel of judges.