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• HIPAA Compliance and Prospective and Existing Clients ( September 2003 )
  

  Professional Employer Organizations ("PEOs") often encounter health information pertaining to the employees of prospective clients, or to their co-employees. This article explores how HIPAA's new privacy rules impact PEOs both in the client in-take process, and after the PEO has become a co-employer.

• The Wedding Cake Falls: An Update on Same-Sex Marriage and Domestic Partner Issues After the San Francisco Marriage Decision ( September 2004 )
  

  Ruling in a pair of cases challenging the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses by the City and County of San Francisco, the California Supreme Court held that San Francisco officials exceeded their authority. The Court also held that the approximately 4,000 same-sex marriage licenses issued by San Francisco were void from the inception.

• Electronic Medical Records - Health Care's Next Challenge in Cyberspace ( September 2004 )
  

  The quest for health care reform and the dynamic growth of integrated delivery systems have led to significant developments in the application of information technology to the health care industry. Multiprovider organizations now link computers on different floors, at different offices, and in different states to share patient information throughout an integrated network.

• Managed Care Contracts - Key Provisions for Providers ( September 2004 )
  

  The contract between a physician or other health care professional and a managed care organization (MCO) such as a provider-sponsored network, integrated delivery system, health maintenance organization, or other health care plan, is the fundamental document which frames, defines and governs their relationship. Contractual provisions can affect payment, office organization, practices and procedures, and confidential records as well as clinical decision-making.

• Managed Care: Managed Costs or Managed Medicine? ( September 2004 )
  

  Many people believe that the rising costs of medical care in the United States, and the increasing numbers of ordinary citizens who cannot afford it, have combined to threaten this country's social and economic health. By the year 2000, unless fundamental changes occur in the health care delivery and financing system, these costs will rise to $1.6 trillion, or 16.4 percent of the GNP.

• Rhode Island's New Consumer Orientated Health Care Law: A Model ( September 2004 )
  

  Health care professionals and providers, insurance companies and health maintenance organizations ("HMOs"), and individual consumers and groups are all praising the passage of the "Health Care Accessibility and Quality Assurance Act" (the "Act") by the Rhode Island legislature this July. Patterned after the American Medical Association's "Patient Protection Act," the new law empowers the state Department of Health to regulate and monitor managed care plans to ensure a proper balance between the rights of the plan, the people who pay the premiums, and the patients who receive the care.

• The HIPAA Hook: Medical Flexible Spending Accounts and Employee Assistance Programs Pull Fully Insured Employers into the HIPAA Privacy Compliance Net ( March 2004 )
  

  The popularity of medical FSAs and the prevalence of EAPs means that many employers, even those with fully-insured medical, dental, and vision plans, will need to address compliance with the HIPAA Privacy Rule before the April 14, 2004 compliance deadline. Employers who have failed to bring their medical FSA or their FSA into compliance with the HIPAA Privacy Rule may then discover a costly Achilles' heel.

• The New HIPAA Privacy Rule -- What is it and who should care? ( June 2003 )
  

  HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. In trying to streamline the complicated and fragmented health care system and reduce costs, Congress included within HIPAA what it entitled "Administrative Simplification" provisions, designed to make it easier and cheaper for health care providers and health plans to transmit health information electronically.

• DWT Releases Comments on OIG'S Issuance of Compliance Resource Guide for Corporate Boards ( April 2003 )
  

  The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (OIG), working in collaboration with the American Health Lawyers Association, just published Corporate Responsibility and Corporate Compliance: A Resource for Healthcare Boards of Directors ("Board Compliance Guide"). In the wake of Enron, Sarbanes-Oxley and various agency pronouncements, unprecedented attention is being given to the roles and responsibilities of corporate boards.

• How "Clever" Personal Injury Lawyers Proceed in 2002 ( January 2003 )
  

  Most corporate defendants begin their work on cases when they have received notice of a claim or are served with process, but that is not when personal injury lawyers begin and plan lawsuits in 2002. When modern personal injury lawyers target tobacco companies, pharmaceutical companies, insurers and other so-called "unpopular" industries, they begin by vilifying the company, and sometimes an entire industry, in the media.