Policy & Compliance

  • March 16, 2026

    Judge Tosses Kaiser Whistleblowers' Claims After $556M Deal

    A California federal court on Monday officially dismissed False Claims Act lawsuits from the federal government and three people alleging that Kaiser Permanente affiliates engaged in Medicare fraud, on the heels of Kaiser's $556 million settlement reached in January.

  • March 16, 2026

    Mich. Jury Awards $10M To Med Resident Fired During Leave

    A Michigan state jury has awarded more than $10 million to a former medical student who said she was fired from a hospital's OB-GYN residency program after being forced to take a required licensing exam while on maternity leave.

  • March 16, 2026

    HHS' Childhood Vaccine Policy Changes Put On Ice

    A Massachusetts federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration's modified childhood vaccine schedule and put all decisions made by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s federal vaccine policy committee on hold, finding they veered sharply from normal procedure and likely violated the law.

  • March 16, 2026

    Mass. City Accused Of Bias In Mental Health 911 Response

    The city of Worcester, Massachusetts, was hit with a suit Monday claiming that its 911 response is inadequate and discriminatory towards people with mental disabilities because the armed police who usually show up are ill-equipped to deal with those calls and often make matters worse.

  • March 13, 2026

    'Swinging Dicks' Dissent Stirs Uproar Across 9th Circ. Bench

    A raunchy dissent in litigation over transgender spa patrons prompted dozens of Ninth Circuit judges to denounce the "vulgar barroom talk" of a colleague, who returned fire by ridiculing his peers for adopting the "fastidious sensibilities of a Victorian nun."

  • March 13, 2026

    4th Circ. Brings Back Allergan Medicaid Overcharging Suit

    A split Fourth Circuit panel on Friday revived a whistleblower suit accusing an Allergan Sales LLC predecessor of overcharging Medicaid by more than $680 million, saying the whistleblower plausibly alleged the company knowingly improperly aggregated discounts into "best prices" for drugs.

  • March 13, 2026

    Sandoz Appealing Ruling Over Amgen's Enbrel Biosimilar

    Sandoz Inc. is appealing after a Virginia federal court ruled it should have brought claims accusing Amgen of blocking competition for the Enbrel biosimilar in a previous patent dispute, according to a Friday notice. 

  • March 13, 2026

    Texas Justices Clear Way For State's Trans Care Probe

    An LGBTQ+ advocacy organization must produce documents as part of an investigation from the Texas attorney general's office into transgender treatments for minors, the Texas Supreme Court ruled on Friday, saying that the state's ban on gender-affirming care for minors is the law and must be followed. 

  • March 13, 2026

    EPA Aims To Lift Biden-Era Ethylene Oxide Limits

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed rolling back limits on emissions of ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic chemical used in the sterilization of medical devices.

  • March 12, 2026

    Ariz. Docs Ink $4.75M FCA Deal Over Unnecessary Treatment

    An Arizona-based physician group that offers cardiology and vascular services has inked a $4.75 million settlement to resolve False Claims Act allegations they performed unnecessary vein ablations and submitted claims for payment to government healthcare programs for reimbursement, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.

  • March 12, 2026

    Top Texas Court Upholds Death Sentence For ICU Nurse

    The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Thursday affirmed the death sentence of a former cardiovascular nurse convicted of intentionally murdering patients recovering from operations, finding that Texas prosecutors' accusation that defense counsel engaged in "misdirection and deception" was "mild."

  • March 12, 2026

    Wash. Justices OK Jury Instruction In TB Malpractice Case

    The Washington State Supreme Court declined Thursday to flip a family's loss in a case blaming an Evergreen State doctor for failing to address signs of an intestinal tuberculosis infection that led to a patient's death, rejecting a challenge to a jury instruction on the physician's exercise of judgment.

  • March 12, 2026

    Colo. Panel Clarifies Workers Comp Law On Maintenance Care

    In interpreting the Colorado Workers' Compensation Act, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled for the first time Thursday that employers and their insurers cannot limit maintenance medical benefits to any specific treatment in a final admission of liability.

  • March 12, 2026

    US Chamber Report Warns Of Risks To IP Protection

    While the U.S. has ranked at the top of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's list measuring how countries worldwide are enforcing intellectual property laws, the group said problems with free trade agreements and efforts to reduce pharmaceutical prices could cause problems on the horizon domestically.

  • March 12, 2026

    Doc's Hands Aren't Property, Texas Panel Rules In Death Suit

    A state-employed doctor's hands are not "tangible personal property," a Texas appeals court ruled Thursday, dismissing a wrongful death suit from the family of a patient who contracted a fatal infection during her hospital stay. 

  • March 11, 2026

    New Wyoming Abortion Law Faces Familiar Legal Challenge

    Just a day after it was signed into law, Wyoming's new anti-abortion law triggered a legal challenge from the same health clinic that successfully sued over the state's previous abortion limits.

  • March 11, 2026

    La. Fights Dismissal Bid In Abortion Regulation Dispute

    The state of Louisiana urged a federal court to deny motions by GenBioPro Inc. and Danco Laboratories seeking dismissal of its suit challenging federal regulation on mail-order abortion drugs, arguing it has established harms stemming from the regulations.

  • March 11, 2026

    Ohio Hospital Defeats DaVita's Dialysis Discrimination Suit

    An Ohio hospital and its health benefit plan did not discriminate against patients with end-stage renal disease by eliminating in-network coverage for dialysis, a federal court ruled, finding that dialysis provider DaVita Inc. failed to show the plan intended to harm participants.

  • March 11, 2026

    VA, DOJ Cut Deal To Make Attys Mental Health Guardians

    Under a new initiative, attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice will serve as legal guardians for some homeless veterans, the Trump administration announced on Wednesday, though some veterans advocates expressed concern that the new program could involuntarily coerce veterans experiencing mental health issues into institutional care.

  • March 11, 2026

    Aetna Will Pay $117.7M To Resolve False Billing Suit

    Aetna Inc. has agreed to pay $117.7 million to settle claims that the company violated the False Claims Act by submitting, and failing to correct, false diagnosis codes for its Medicare Advantage plan customers in order to boost cash flow from the federal insurance program, the U.S. attorney's office in Philadelphia said Wednesday.

  • March 10, 2026

    A Look At The Real Impact Of The FTC's PBM Settlements

    It may all come down to the details in a landmark settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and one of the biggest pharmacy benefit managers in the U.S., as delayed timelines and a key carveout provision threaten to dampen sweeping changes to the larger system.

  • March 10, 2026

    5th Circ. Revives J&J Sales Rep's Wage Dispute

    A Texas federal court did not take into consideration relevant factors to determine whether a former Johnson & Johnson sales representative's failure to retain local counsel in his wage and hour suit represented excusable neglect, the Fifth Circuit ruled on Tuesday.

  • March 10, 2026

    Sanofi Says Judge Botched Insulin Device Patent Listings

    Sanofi-Aventis sparred with drug wholesalers over a Massachusetts federal magistrate judge's pronouncements that the parties should go to trial on claims the pharmaceutical giant used improper insulin device patent listings to anticompetitively protect the blockbuster Lantus insulin pen from competition.

  • March 10, 2026

    Lab's Aetna Payment Suit Survives, But With Deep Cuts

    A Connecticut federal judge ruled Aetna and its parent company, CVS Health Corp., must face a pared down lawsuit from a medical laboratory alleging it is owed $20.6 million in unpaid invoices.

  • March 10, 2026

    Wash. To Set Its Own Vaccine Schedule Under New State Law

    Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson has signed legislation that requires health plans to cover vaccines and other preventive care recommended by the state rather than the federal government, joining a movement toward states setting their own recommendations.

Expert Analysis

  • How DOJ's New Data Security Rules Leave HIPAA In The Dust

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    The U.S. Department of Justice's recently effective data security requirements carry profound implications for how healthcare providers collect, store, share and use data — and approach vendor oversight — that go far beyond the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, say attorneys at Nelson Mullins.

  • Texas Med Spas Must Prepare For 2 New State Laws

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    Two new laws in Texas — regulating elective intravenous therapy and reforming healthcare noncompetes — mark a pivotal shift in the regulatory framework for medical spas in the state, which must proactively adapt their operations and contractual practices, says Brad Cook at Munsch Hardt.

  • DOJ-HHS Collab Crystallizes Focus On Health Enforcement

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    The recently announced partnership between the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to combat False Claims Act violations, following a multiyear trend of high-dollar DOJ recoveries, signals a long-term enforcement horizon with major implications for healthcare entities and whistleblowers, say attorneys at RJO.

  • How The Healthline Privacy Settlement Redefines Ad Tech Use

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    The Healthline settlement is the first time California has drawn a clear line in the sand around how website tracking must function in practice, so if your site uses tracking technologies, especially around sensitive content like health or finance, regulators are inspecting your website's back end, not just its banner, say attorneys at Baker Donelson.

  • How Sweeping Budget Bill Shakes Up Health Industry

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    With the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act marking one of the most significant overhauls of federal health policy since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, providers, managed care organizations and life sciences companies must now shift focus from policy review to implementation planning, say advisers at Holland & Knight.

  • New DOJ Penalty Policy Could Spell Trouble For Cos.

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    In light of the U.S. Department of Justice’s recently published guidance making victim relief a core condition of coordinated resolution crediting, companies facing parallel investigations must carefully calibrate their negotiation strategies to minimize the risk of duplicative penalties, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • A Look At Key 5th Circ. White Collar Rulings So Far This Year

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    In the first half of 2025, the Fifth Circuit has decided numerous cases of particular import to white collar practitioners, which collectively underscore the critical importance of meticulous recordbuilding, procedural compliance and strategic litigation choices at every stage of a case, says Joe Magliolo at Jackson Walker.

  • What US Medicine Onshoring Means For Indian Life Sciences

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    Despite the Trump administration's latest moves to onshore essential medicine manufacturing, India will likely remain an indispensable component of the U.S. drug supply chain, but Indian manufacturers should prepare for stricter compliance checks, says Jashaswi Ghosh at Holon Law Partners.

  • FCA Working Group Reboot Signals EHR Compliance Risk

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    The revival of the False Claims Act working group is an aggressive expansion of enforcement efforts by the Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services targeted toward technology-enabled fraud involving electronic health records and other data, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • FDA's Hasty Policymaking Approach Faces APA Challenges

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    Though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has abandoned its usual notice-and-comment process for implementing new regulatory initiatives, two recent district court decisions make clear that these programs are still susceptible to Administrative Procedure Act challenges, says Rachel Turow at Skadden.

  • The Metamorphosis Of The Major Questions Doctrine

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    The so-called major questions doctrine arose as a counterweight to Chevron deference over the past few decades, but invocations of the doctrine have persisted in the year since Chevron was overturned, suggesting it still has a role to play in reining in agency overreach, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • A Rapidly Evolving Landscape For Noncompetes In Healthcare

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    A wave of new state laws regulating noncompete agreements in the healthcare sector, varying in scope, approach and enforceability, are shaped by several factors unique to the industry and are likely to distort the market, say attorneys at Seyfarth.

  • Arguing The 8th Amendment For Reduction In FCA Penalties

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    While False Claims Act decisions lack consistency in how high the judgment-to-damages ratio in such cases can be before it becomes unconstitutional, defense counsel should cite the Eighth Amendment's excessive fines clause in pre-trial settlement negotiations, and seek penalty decreases in post-judgment motions and on appeal, says Scott Grubman at Chilivis Grubman.