Policy & Compliance
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January 12, 2026
Justices Pass On Houston Hospital Workers' COVID Vax Fight
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a challenge to a Houston hospital's win in a lawsuit brought by a group of employees who said they were unlawfully terminated after refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.
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January 09, 2026
Mylan, Aurobindo Must Face Generic Drug Price-Fixing Claims
A Connecticut federal judge on Friday refused to hand a quick win to Mylan Pharmaceuticals and Aurobindo Pharma USA in sprawling antitrust litigation against 26 total pharmaceutical companies, ruling that a coalition of states has enough evidence to raise a genuine dispute about whether the companies conspired to fix drug prices.
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January 09, 2026
Up Next At High Court: Pollution Lawsuits & Trans Athletes
The U.S. Supreme Court will kick off the new year by hearing disputes over the constitutionality of state laws banning transgender female athletes from female-only sports and whether state or federal courts are the proper forum for lawsuits seeking to hold major oil companies accountable for harm caused by their oil production activities along Louisiana's coast.
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January 09, 2026
Mich. Bid For Behavioral Managed Care Contracts Can't Stand
A Michigan Court of Claims judge ruled the state health department's bid for Medicaid managed care contract proposals would unlawfully interfere with the duties of local governmental bodies that provide and coordinate behavioral health care.
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January 09, 2026
Veterinary Group Says DOJ Accreditation Points Irrelevant
The American Veterinary Medical Association has told a Tennessee federal court that the government's concerns about professional groups are irrelevant to a veterinary school's antitrust case challenging the association's accreditation requirements.
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January 09, 2026
Ex-Prosecutor OK For Drug Pricing MDL, Special Master Says
Former Connecticut Assistant Attorney General Joseph Nielsen and his law firm, Lowey Dannenberg PC, should not be disqualified from representing insurers in multidistrict litigation over generic drug price-fixing because he did not have any special knowledge that the states suing drugmakers hadn't already shared with the private plaintiffs, according to a special master's report and recommendation.
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January 08, 2026
Walgreens Gets $392K Sanction Against Blue Cross Insurers
A Chicago federal judge on Thursday ordered a host of Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers to pay Walgreens more than $392,000 in attorney fees and expenses for discovery misconduct in their suit that accuses the drugstore company of fraudulently overcharging for prescription drugs.
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January 08, 2026
9th Circ. Redo Raises New Issues On Abortion Coverage Law
A Ninth Circuit panel that previously sided with Washington in a church's challenge to a state law mandating employer health coverage of abortion services voiced fresh concerns about both sides' positions when revisiting the case Thursday, roughly six months after rescinding the initial opinion without explanation.
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January 08, 2026
Ex-UnitedHealth GC Joins WilmerHale As Partner In London
After more than 25 years as a general counsel handling some of the direst corporate crises imaginable, former UnitedHealth Group general counsel Rupert Bondy is returning to London to co-lead WilmerHale's crisis management and strategic response group.
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January 07, 2026
Potomac Law Adds Former DOJ, HHS Civil Rights Atty
Potomac Law Group has hired a healthcare attorney with over 15 years working on LGBTQ+ protections and other civil rights issues at the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.
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January 07, 2026
Covenant Health Sued Over Patient Data Security Breach
Nonprofit healthcare system Covenant Health Inc. has been hit with a proposed class action over a data breach that reportedly compromised the information of nearly half a million people.
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January 06, 2026
8th Circ. Revives Jail Suicide Suit Against Mental Health Org.
An Eighth Circuit panel unanimously revived a lawsuit Tuesday by the family of an Iowa jail inmate who died by suicide, holding that a jury could find that a mental health provider's alleged incomplete report to jail staff put the inmate at greater risk.
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January 06, 2026
Judge Hints Conn. Dentist's Press Release Claims Lack Teeth
A Connecticut appellate judge seemed to doubt Tuesday that a dentist had asserted clear constitutional claims against state officials who issued a press release about his $300,000 False Claims Act settlement, suggesting the case might actually sound in defamation.
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January 06, 2026
Bankrupt Hospital Wants Out Of $3B BCBS Antitrust Deal
A bankrupt Alabama hospital is asking a federal judge to allow it to drop out of a $2.8 billion antitrust class action settlement with Blue Cross Blue Shield, saying it may be forced to shut down unless it can pursue separate relief in bankruptcy court.
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January 06, 2026
The Future of The 340B Rebate Pilot
A federal judge halted a new 340B pilot program, handing a win for safety net healthcare providers. Healthcare attorneys say it's too early for providers to celebrate.
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January 06, 2026
Cigna Accused Of Rigging Market For Life-Saving Drugs
Patients with chronic health conditions sued Cigna in an Illinois federal court alleging in a proposed class action Tuesday that the company and its pharmacy and pharmacy benefit manager subsidiaries use exclusive agreements to lock users into a network where Byzantine refill processes have been deliberately erected to limit payouts for life-saving drugs.
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January 06, 2026
FTC Signals Support Of Miss. Bill For Midwives' Solo Practice
A Federal Trade Commission official on Monday encouraged a Mississippi lawmaker to keep in mind the possible motives of opponents of proposed legislation that would exempt midwives from having to contract with physicians to provide advanced-level nursing care.
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January 06, 2026
GAO IDs 4 Funding Programs As Lacking Fraud Controls
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has identified four federal agency funding programs as having failed to incorporate certain key requirements and leading practices meant to oversee and prevent fraud, waste and abuse in awards.
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January 06, 2026
1st Circ. Questions Feds' Mootness Claim In NIH Grant Suits
The First Circuit appeared to push back Tuesday on assertions by the government that new guidance for terminating medical research grants over supposed links to issues like DEI, gender identity and vaccines — along with a partial settlement last week — moot a pair of lawsuits challenging the directives.
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January 06, 2026
RFK Jr. Can't Avoid Medical Groups' Challenge To Vax Policy
A Boston federal judge on Tuesday rebuffed U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s bid to dismiss a challenge to vaccine policy changes, saying medical associations have plausibly alleged a federal vaccine committee is not fairly balanced.
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January 06, 2026
NJ Judge Signals Green Light To Revive J&J Unit's Libel Suit
A New Jersey federal judge has indicated she is planning to grant a bankrupt Johnson & Johnson talc subsidiary's bid to revive its trade libel claim over a scientific article linking asbestos in talc to mesothelioma.
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January 06, 2026
Public Health Atty Talks Botulism, Infants And FDA Staffing
Three years ago, a bacterial outbreak at a Michigan manufacturing plant sparked a shutdown and a national infant formula shortage. Another episode last year at a formula plant in Iowa should be a red flag for the public and a short-handed FDA, according to Sarah Sorscher of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
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January 06, 2026
Wyo. High Court Strikes Down 2 Laws Restricting Abortion
The Wyoming Supreme Court struck down the state's near-total abortion ban and a first-of-its-kind prohibition on abortion pills on Tuesday, saying the laws violated the state constitution.
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January 06, 2026
Ore. Leads Coalition Defending Trans Care: 5 Things To Know
Oregon is drawing on state statutory protections for transgender patients as it leads a coalition states in a new challenge to the Trump administration. Law360 looks at what you need to know about the complaint.
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January 06, 2026
Healthcare Litigator Moves Practice To Troutman In Philly
A litigator specializing in healthcare and product liability cases has joined Troutman Pepper Locke LLP's Philadelphia office after practicing for more than six years with Campbell Conroy & O'Neil PC.
Expert Analysis
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Previewing State Efforts To Regulate Mental Health Chatbots
New York, Nevada and Utah have all recently enacted laws regulating the use of artificial intelligence to deliver mental health services, offering early insights into how other states may regulate this area, say attorneys at Goodwin.
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How DOJ's New Data Security Rules Leave HIPAA In The Dust
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.
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Texas Med Spas Must Prepare For 2 New State Laws
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.
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DOJ-HHS Collab Crystallizes Focus On Health Enforcement
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.
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How The Healthline Privacy Settlement Redefines Ad Tech Use
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.
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How Sweeping Budget Bill Shakes Up Health Industry
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.
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New DOJ Penalty Policy Could Spell Trouble For Cos.
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.
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A Look At Key 5th Circ. White Collar Rulings So Far This Year
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.
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What US Medicine Onshoring Means For Indian Life Sciences
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.
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FCA Working Group Reboot Signals EHR Compliance Risk
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.
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FDA's Hasty Policymaking Approach Faces APA Challenges
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.
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The Metamorphosis Of The Major Questions Doctrine
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.
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A Rapidly Evolving Landscape For Noncompetes In Healthcare
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.