The July 2013 alert, Federal Government Aggressively Pursuing Health Care Fraud, stressed the importance of self-audits for health care providers. With the Obama administration taking a hard-line approach to repeat offenders and high Medicare billing physicians, self-audits are more important than ever.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Act has been in effect for nearly four years, and almost 75 percent of the required regulations have been written or proposed. Issued regulations help to clarify requirements, but the climate created by expectations of regulators continues to create additional challenges for boards.

Ohio physicians now have another reason to be familiar with and utilize the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System (“OARRS”) as a component of their practices. While OARRS checks have been mandatory under certain circumstances since late 2011, the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy has just released information concerning a new OARRS feature, which stands to further enhance medication utilization review, monitoring and compliance. Since late 2006, information on prescriptions classified as Schedule II-V Controlled Substances, Carisoprodol and Tramadol has been collected and made available to practitioners and regulators through the OARRS prescription monitoring program. The Pharmacy Board has added a new feature to OARRS – the Practice Insight Report – to further aid Ohio health care providers.

A loan transaction is generally not thought of as resulting in a taxable event. But it can if the borrower is a U.S. corporation (U.S. Co.) with a foreign subsidiary (FS). More specifically, a loan transaction can trigger a deemed dividend from the FS to U.S. Co. if the credit agreement provides for any of the following: (i) a pledge by U.S. Co. of at least two-thirds of the voting power of FS; (ii) a guarantee of the loan by the FS; (iii) a pledge by the FS of its assets to secure the loan; or (iv) joint and several liability of the FS on the loan.

The Obama Administration initially delayed the imposition of the employer “shared responsibility” payment (applicable under Internal Revenue Code section 4980H) which required all employers with greater than 50 employees to provide qualifying health care coverage for all full-time employees or be subject to a penalty on July 2, 2013. On Feb. 10, 2014, the U.S. Treasury Department released final regulations regarding the shared responsibility payment and again delayed imposition of this penalty for employers who have greater than 50 but less than 100 employees.

As we begin to hold personnel hearings for “Personnel Season” a question that seems to come up often concerns the listing of individual employee names on county board of education agendas. Many administrators are, understandably, concerned about revealing the names of employees who are recommended for various personnel actions, such as reductions in force (“RIF”) and transfers, while still complying with the West Virginia Open Governmental Proceedings Act.

Of all of the Supreme Court decisions in recent years, few have drawn more public interest (or outcry, depending on an individual’s political school of thought) than United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry and few Court decisions have impacted (if not legally, at least emotionally) the LGBT population in the same manner and scope as these cases. For many, however, the idea that the Supreme Court could reach two very different conclusions on what may initially appear to be the same legal issue has caused some to challenge the rational of those decisions.

Shifts in attitudes and changing social mores impact workplace dynamics in ways that are difficult to measure. In some instances, a change in social customs gives rise to the need for new laws, regulations or policies affecting the employer-employee relationship. The advent of social media illustrates this principle. The increased use of social media by people while at work or to communicate about work has created the need for guidelines about when and how employers can regulate an employee’s use of social media. In other instances, however, changes in the law instigate changes in the workplace. The protections available to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) workers is one of those instances. The shift in the law towards recognition of same-sex marriage leads to conversations in the workplace about individual sexuality. As revelation of sexual orientation becomes necessary for some purposes, such as enrolling a same-sex partner or spouse in an employer’s benefit plan, the potential for discrimination increases.

Under Kentucky law, limited liability companies have flexibility when fashioning the structure of their businesses. Kentucky’s governing law generally defers to the discretion of the limited liability company members, who are free to establish their business procedures and even vary from the default provisions established by the governing law. However, this freedom can be costly. If members do not draft clear articles of organization and operating agreements, resolving their future conflicts can prove expensive.

On January 8, 2014, the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) updated the List of Excluded Individuals and Entities (“LEIE”). According to the LEIE, over 66,000 health care providers are currently excluded from all Federal health care plans. Health care providers receiving funding from Federal health care programs must determine if potential and current employees are excluded. Searching the OIG’s LEIE is a simple but necessary task.