Policy & Compliance

  • March 06, 2026

    Dentist Says She Was Fired For Exposing Medicaid Fraud

    A dentist filed suit against several West Michigan dental practices and a dental management company, claiming she was fired after reporting that the clinics billed Medicaid for dental procedures that were never performed.

  • March 05, 2026

    Telehealth Co. Swaps In Gordon Rees In Novo's GLP-1 Fight

    A telehealth platform facing allegations from Novo Nordisk that it falsely advertised Ozempic alternatives has picked new counsel in the dispute, withdrawing attorneys from Foley & Lardner LLP and Miller Nash LLP and substituting in two lawyers from Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP.

  • March 05, 2026

    Pharma Co. Investors Secure Class Cert. Over FDA Obstacles

    A Pennsylvania federal judge has granted certification to a group of Verrica Pharmaceuticals Inc. investors who claim the company defrauded them by hiding obstacles it faced in obtaining approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its lead product, though she made a slight change to the class definition to avoid what she called a "heads I win, tails you lose strategy."

  • March 05, 2026

    9th Circ. Denies Bail Pending Nurse Wage-Fixing Appeal

    A Ninth Circuit panel summarily refused to allow a Las Vegas home nursing executive to avoid prison while appealing the U.S. Department of Justice's first-ever criminal wage-fixing conviction.

  • March 05, 2026

    9th Circ. Judge 'Frustrated' At DOJ Position On Anti-Trans EOs

    A Ninth Circuit judge said Thursday he's "very frustrated" with the Trump administration's argument that a district court judge acted prematurely by partly blocking executive orders to end funding for gender-affirming care, saying it's "pretty clear" the government was poised to do exactly that.

  • March 05, 2026

    BCBS Can't Nix NC Plan Member From Cancer Treatment Row

    A North Carolina federal judge ruled a Blue Cross Blue Shield unit must face proposed class action claims over its administration of a state employee health plan from a participant alleging it arbitrarily characterized a proton beam cancer radiation treatment as experimental to deny coverage.

  • March 05, 2026

    Perez Morris Taps Ex-Post & Schell Atty To Lead Philly Office

    Seven years after expanding into Philadelphia, Perez Morris has brought in a former Post & Schell PC principal and seasoned healthcare litigator to lead the office as its first partner-in-charge.

  • March 05, 2026

    ERISA Recap: 6 Developments To Remember From Feb.

    The Second Circuit refused to boot a former Luxottica worker's proposed class claims into solo arbitration, a Texas federal judge declined to snuff out a tobacco fee suit against 7-Eleven and a healthcare company inked a $43 million deal to wrap a case over how it handled 401(k) plan forfeitures. Here's a look back at six noteworthy moves in Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases from last month.

  • March 05, 2026

    Fla. Lab Pays $980K To Settle Kickback Allegations

    A laboratory in Florida agreed to pay $980,000 to resolve allegations that it provided kickbacks to marketers for referring Medicare beneficiaries to use its services, according to a Thursday statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • March 04, 2026

    CVS Beats Antitrust Suit Over 340B Drug Program, For Good

    CVS Health Corp. permanently defeated a proposed antitrust class action alleging it forced hospitals in a discount drug program to use its third-party administrator for savings, when a Pennsylvania federal judge ruled Tuesday that hospitals aren't required to contract with CVS and can pick Walgreens or other participating pharmacies to contract with.

  • March 04, 2026

    DC Judge Strikes Down 340B Drug Discount Registration Rule

    The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration cannot reinstate a pre-pandemic policy requiring covered hospitals' offsite facilities to register with the agency in order to access discounted drugs under the 340B program, a D.C. federal judge ruled.

  • March 04, 2026

    Fla. Hospital, EMT Beat Suit Over Unauthorized Trauma Photo

    A Miami-area hospital and one of its emergency medical technicians didn't intentionally inflict emotional distress or violate the privacy of the father of a gravely injured motorcycle crash patient when an EMT posted a photo of the motorcyclist's injured leg to Instagram, a Florida appeals panel ruled Wednesday. 

  • March 04, 2026

    6th Circ. Backs Tenn. Med School In FMLA Retaliation Suit

    A former medical resident cannot revive his lawsuit claiming a Tennessee medical school suspended him for taking leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Sixth Circuit ruled this week, finding he failed to show the school's explanation for the discipline was a pretext for retaliation.

  • March 04, 2026

    NY Bill Would Expand Liability For Chatbot Operators

    A bill in the New York State Senate that would impose liability on the owners and operators of artificial intelligence-powered chatbots that give advice reserved for licensed professionals like lawyers and doctors could reshape how some legal tech entities engage with consumers in the Empire State.

  • March 04, 2026

    House Panel Tussles Over Minnesota Medicaid Fraud Claims

    The public political battle between Minnesota and the federal government over alleged Medicaid fraud in the state continued Wednesday on Capitol Hill, with Republicans and Democrats casting stones at each other after President Donald Trump's administration pulled nearly $260 million in healthcare funding from the state.

  • March 04, 2026

    7th. Circ. Upholds Healthcare Co.'s Win In FMLA Suit

    The Seventh Circuit affirmed a healthcare company's win in a former human resources specialist's Family and Medical Leave Act suit, holding that the health system lawfully terminated her for failing to return to work once her approved leave expired.

  • March 03, 2026

    BioAge Investors Lose Last Bid At Obesity Drug-Linked Suit

    Biopharmaceutical company BioAge Labs Inc. has escaped a suit accusing it of damaging investors by unexpectedly halting a clinical trial for a weight loss drug, with a California federal judge finding that the court already dismissed the claim that BioAge's risk disclosures were lacking.

  • March 03, 2026

    Inova Defeats Nurses' COVID Vax Bias Suits At 4th Circ.

    The Fourth Circuit refused Tuesday to revive suits from nurse anesthetists who said they faced religious and disability discrimination when they were fired for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, ruling that nonprofit healthcare provider Inova wasn't their employer.

  • March 03, 2026

    Death From Stem Cell Treatment For ALS Draws $24M Verdict

    A Washington state jury awarded $24 million to the family of a patient who died just two days after what his family members described as a "worthless" spinal cord procedure to treat his ALS at a Seattle stem cell clinic.

  • March 03, 2026

    Ex-FDA Leaders Rebut Contraception Rollbacks At 3rd Circ.

    Former FDA commissioners argued that Trump-era religious exemptions for birth control coverage jeopardize public health and distort medical science, in an animus brief filed Monday with the Third Circuit.

  • March 03, 2026

    NC Doctor's Bid For New Trial Is Too Late, Judge Says

    A North Carolina federal judge has refused to order a new trial for a doctor convicted of participating in an $11 million Medicare fraud scheme, finding that because the motion did not contain new evidence, the deadline to request another trial has passed.

  • March 03, 2026

    Elevance Sanction Adds To Medicare Advantage Troubles

    Amid slowing enrollment rates and rising enforcement interest in private Medicare plans, insurer Elevance Health is being barred from signing up new patients to some prescription drug plans. It's not the only bad news for Elevance or the MA market.

  • March 03, 2026

    Florida Man Pleads Guilty In $24M HIV Drugs Fraud Scheme

    The owner of a marketing company in Florida has pled guilty to receiving kickbacks as part of a $24 million scheme to sign up Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries for HIV prophylactic medications they did not need.

  • March 03, 2026

    Wells Fargo Escapes Ex-Workers' Prescription Cost Suit

    Former Wells Fargo workers on the employer healthcare plan failed to show that the company violated federal benefits law by allowing them to overpay for prescription drugs, a Minnesota federal judge found Tuesday, tossing the proposed class action.

  • March 03, 2026

    Pharma In Uphill Fight With Contract Pharmacy Laws

    Silence in the federal law governing the 340B discount drug program on the issue of contract pharmacies is working against drugmakers in their effort to stop states from protecting provider agreements with pharmacies.

Expert Analysis

  • Courts' Rare Quash Of DOJ Subpoenas Has Lessons For Cos.

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    In a rare move, three federal courts recently quashed or partially quashed expansive U.S. Department of Justice administrative subpoenas issued to providers of gender-affirming care, demonstrating that courts will scrutinize purpose, cabin statutory authority and acknowledge the profound privacy burdens of overbroad government demands for sensitive records, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • Remote Patient Monitoring Is At Regulatory Inflection Point

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    With remote patient monitoring at the center of new federal pilot programs and a recent report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General examining Medicare billing for those services, it is clear that balancing innovation and risk will be a central challenge ahead for digital health stakeholders, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Utah's AI Prescription Renewal Pilot Could Inform Policy

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    Utah recently became the first state to approve an artificial intelligence system for autonomously renewing certain prescription medicines, providing a test case for how regulators may be able to draw boundaries between administrative automation and medical judgment, say Jashaswi Ghosh at Holon Law Partners and Bryant Godfrey at Foley Hoag.

  • Ramped Up Psychedelic Production Carries Opportunity, Risk

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    Kimberly Chew at Husch Blackwell discusses the key legal implications of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's recent dramatic increases in the production quotas for a range of psychedelic substances, offering guidance on compliance, risk management and strategic opportunities for practitioners navigating this rapidly evolving landscape.

  • New Biotech Nat'l Security Controls May Have Blunted Impact

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    While the newly enacted federal prohibition against contracting with certain biotechnology providers associated with countries of concern may have consequences on U.S. companies' ability to develop drugs, the restrictions may prove to be less problematic for the industry than the significant publicity around their passage would suggest, say attorneys at Wilson Sonsini.

  • Takeaways From The DOJ Fraud Section's 2025 Year In Review

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    Former acting Principal Deputy Chief Sean Tonolli of the U.S. Department of Justice's Fraud Section, now at Cahill Gordon, analyzes key findings from the section’s annual report — including the changes implemented to adapt to the new administration’s priorities — and lays out what to watch for this year.

  • Traditional FCA Enforcement Surges Amid Shifting Priorities

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    The U.S. Department of Justice’s January report on False Claims Act enforcement in fiscal year 2025 reveals that while the administration signaled its intent to expand FCA enforcement into new areas such as tariffs, for now the greatest exposure remains in traditional areas like healthcare — in which the risk is growing, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • 3 Key Ohio Financial Services Developments From 2025

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    Ohio's banking and financial services sector saw particularly notable developments in 2025, including a significant Ohio Supreme Court decision on creditor disclosure duties to guarantors in Huntington National Bank v. Schneider, and some major proposed changes to the state's Homebuyer Plus program, says Alex Durst at Durst Kerridge.

  • Rescheduling Cannabis Marks New Tax Era For Operators

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    As the attorney general takes steps to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, operators and advisers should prepare by considering the significant changes this will bring from tax, state, industry and market perspectives, says Michael Harlow at CohnReznick.

  • Justices' Med Mal Ruling May Spur Huge Shift For Litigators

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the medical malpractice suit Berk v. Choy, holding that a Florida procedural requirement does not apply to medical malpractice claims filed in federal court, is likely to encourage eligible parties to file claims in federal court, speed the adjudicatory process and create both opportunities and challenges for litigators, says Thomas Kroeger at Colson Hicks.

  • 5 Drug Pricing Policy Developments To Watch In 2026

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    2026 may prove to be a critical year for drug pricing in the U.S., with potential major shifts including several legislative initiatives moving forward after being in the works for years, and more experimentation on the horizon concerning GLP-1s and Section 340B pricing, say attorneys at Manatt.

  • Regulatory Uncertainty Ahead For Organ Transplant System

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    Pending court cases against a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services final rule that introduced a competition-centric model for assessing organ procurement organizations' performance will significantly influence the path forward for such organizations and transplant hospitals, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • Key False Claims Act Trends From The Last Year

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    The False Claims Act remains a powerful enforcement tool after some record verdicts and settlements in 2025, and while traditional fraud areas remain a priority, new initiatives are raising questions about its expanding application, says Veronica Nannis at Joseph Greenwald.