Policy & Compliance
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March 17, 2025
Houston Midwife Arrested In Texas' 1st Criminal Abortion Case
A Houston-area midwife has been arrested after an investigation by the Texas attorney general's office for allegedly providing illegal abortions, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday, the first such criminal charges brought since the state issued its near-total abortion ban.
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March 17, 2025
Feds Defend Prof's Deportation As Arnold & Porter Withdraws
Government lawyers told a Massachusetts federal judge Monday they did not disobey a court order halting the deportation of a Brown University doctor and professor with an H-1B visa, as a team of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP lawyers who lobbed that claim abruptly withdrew from the case.
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March 17, 2025
Seeger Weiss Atty Tapped To Lead Depo-Provera Plaintiffs
A Florida federal judge on Sunday selected Christopher Seeger of Seeger Weiss LLP to lead the team representing plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation claiming Pfizer Inc. failed to adequately warn patients and doctors about the risk of brain tumors associated with the hormonal contraceptive drug Depo-Provera.
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March 14, 2025
Ga. Panel Says COVID-Era Legal Shield Blocks Amputee's Suit
A divided Georgia Court of Appeals on Friday said a trial court should have dismissed a wrongful amputation suit against a Marietta hospital, holding that the patient who lost his right leg after being admitted for COVID-19 symptoms could not beat the legal immunity granted to the hospital by a pandemic-era state law.
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March 14, 2025
Md. Judge Joins Calif. In Reversing Federal Workers' Firing
A Maryland federal judge has ordered the reinstatement of thousands of probationary employees who were abruptly fired from 18 federal agencies, saying the Trump administration's lack of required notice left states "scrambling" to pick up the pieces.
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March 14, 2025
NC Ex-Doctor Gets 2.5 Years For Drug Test Billing Scheme
A 72-year-old doctor in North Carolina was sentenced Friday to two and a half years in prison and ordered to hand over $2 million in restitution for a fraudulent billing scheme involving medically unnecessary drug tests, prosecutors said.
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March 14, 2025
FTC Urges 8th Circ. Not To Pause Insulin Pricing Case
The Federal Trade Commission has urged the Eighth Circuit not to pause its in-house case accusing Caremark Rx, Express Scripts and OptumRx of artificially inflating insulin prices, telling the appeals court the pharmacy benefit managers have no chance of winning on their constitutional claims.
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March 14, 2025
Dr. Oz Pledges 'Upcoding' Crackdown If Confirmed At CMS
Dr. Mehmet Oz told lawmakers he would combat rising healthcare costs by showing there's a "new sheriff in town" opposed to so-called upcoding by Medicare Advantage plans, as he sought support Friday for his nomination to lead the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
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March 14, 2025
Sutter Health Reaches $4.3M Deal To End Retirement Suit
Nonprofit healthcare system Sutter Health will pay $4.3 million to settle a class action from workers alleging their employee retirement plan was saddled with excessive fees and poorly performing investments, according to filings in California federal court.
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March 14, 2025
Feds Say North Carolina Cardiologist Owes $7.9M In Taxes
A North Carolina cardiologist owes the federal government $7.9 million in taxes, fees and interest, according to a new civil complaint brought against him by the tax division of the U.S. Department of Justice seeking to hold him liable for the purportedly unpaid sum.
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March 13, 2025
Colo. Says Its Abortion 'Reversal' Ban Doesn't Discriminate
The Colorado Medical Board and Colorado Board of Nursing have urged a federal court to leave in place a state law banning the use of medication to "reverse" the abortion pill, arguing that it merely regulates "substandard ineffective medical practices" and doesn't discriminate against religious health providers.
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March 13, 2025
Ohio Health Insurer Wins $24M Verdict ln Racketeering Case
An Ohio jury has awarded Medical Mutual of Ohio more than $24 million in damages, after the insurer accused its rivals FrontPath Health Coalition and HealthScope Benefits of undercutting the bidding process for healthcare contracts with the city of Toledo.
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March 13, 2025
NY AG James Pitches Bill To Expand Consumer Protection Law
New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday announced legislation that would expand the state's ban on deceptive business practices to also protect against unfair and abusive practices, an idea backed by Biden-era Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau heads.
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March 13, 2025
Calif. AG Appealing State Limits On Pay-For-Delay Ban
California enforcers are appealing to the Ninth Circuit after a lower court found that a new state law restricting "reverse payment" settlements between brand-name and generic-drug makers cannot be used to regulate deals that were struck outside the state.
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March 13, 2025
PBMs Tell FTC 5-Month Delay Too Long For In-House Insulin Trial
The nation's "Big Three" pharmacy benefit managers say they want to get to trial in the Federal Trade Commission's administrative suit against them sooner rather than later, arguing that the agency's request for a five-month delay would be too long, but they're open to a three-week postponement.
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March 13, 2025
HHS Calls Back Terminated Attys Clearing Medicare Appeals
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday moved to reinstate about 15 attorneys who were cut loose in recent weeks, restoring staff many in the agency saw as critical to clearing a backlog of Medicare appeals.
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March 13, 2025
9th Circ. Ends Idaho Abortion Law Row After Mutual Dismissal
A Ninth Circuit panel has dropped an appeal from Idaho claiming the state's strict abortion ban doesn't conflict with a federal law protecting emergency abortions, after the Trump administration announced its decision to drop the Biden-era legal challenge.
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March 13, 2025
Days Into New Role, FDA's Top Lawyer Is Out
The top lawyer of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration resigned just two days after she was selected for the role, according to a Thursday announcement by the agency on social media site X.
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March 13, 2025
Lacking Votes, White House Pulls Weldon Nomination At CDC
The White House pulled Dr. Dave Weldon's nomination to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday after support among GOP lawmakers wavered, and it became clear he didn't have the votes to clear a Senate committee.
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March 12, 2025
GOP Senators Take Aim At CFPB Medical Debt Rule
Republican senators have introduced a measure to overturn the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent rule banning medical debt from credit reports, one of the latest Biden-era regulations to be targeted for legislative repeal.
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March 12, 2025
Cancer Cause Or Red Herring? Jury Weighs Plant Bellwether
A medical sterilization company told a Colorado jury Wednesday that four women can't get millions in damages based on the "possibility" that emissions from a sterilization plant caused their cancer, at the close of a six-week trial in which the plaintiffs argued the company should be punished for its negligence.
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March 12, 2025
Law360 Cheat Sheet: Novartis' Fight Over Generic Entresto
Novartis has led a wide-ranging litigation campaign to block generic versions of its bestselling cardiovascular drug Entresto that has involved multidistrict litigation, trips to several circuit courts and cases against the federal government. Here, Law360 breaks down how the various cases intersect and what's still playing out.
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March 12, 2025
Women Attys, AGs Urge Justices To Protect Provider Choice
Women attorney groups and a group of state attorneys general urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject South Carolina's attempt to stop Medicaid patients from seeing Planned Parenthood healthcare providers, saying in an amicus brief Wednesday that patients have a right to choose their healthcare providers and have a private right of action to enforce that right.
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March 12, 2025
SEC Says Ex-Allarity Execs Concealed Doomed FDA Approval
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued three former executives of clinical-stage pharmaceutical company Allarity Therapeutics Inc. in Massachusetts federal court, alleging Wednesday that they schemed to conceal from the public that the company's new drug application for its flagship drug had no chance of gaining regulatory approval.
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March 12, 2025
Trump Admin Seeks To End ACA Access For 'Dreamers'
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday proposed a regulation that would do away with the Biden administration's rule allowing recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to qualify for Affordable Care Act coverage.
Expert Analysis
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Law Firm Strategies For Successfully Navigating 2024 Trends
Though law firms face the dual challenge of external and internal pressures as they enter 2024, firms willing to pivot will be able to stand out by adapting to stakeholder needs and reimagining their infrastructure, says Shireen Hilal at Maior Consultants.
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AI In Health Law: The Top Guest Articles Of 2023
As the use of artificial intelligence accelerated this year, Expert Analysis writers examined AI's significant impact on the healthcare sector, ranging from key compliance considerations for companies utilizing AI tools to regulators' efforts to keep up with rapidly evolving technologies.
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The Most-Read Legal Industry Law360 Guest Articles Of 2023
A range of legal industry topics drew readers' attention in Law360's Expert Analysis section this year, from associate retention strategies to ethical billing practices.
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Inside Higher Education's New FCA Liability Challenges
As the educational sector expands its use of government funding, schools are at increased risk under the False Claims Act, but recent settlements offer valuable lessons about new theories of liability they may face and specific procedures to reduce their exposure, say James Zelenay and Jeremy Ochsenbein at Gibson Dunn.
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AI Executive Order's Life Science, Healthcare Industry Effects
The recent White House executive order to manage risks associated with artificial intelligence includes provisions specific to healthcare and life sciences that merit special attention, including transparency, human oversight of AI output, and real world performance monitoring, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.
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HHS Advisory Highlights Free Product Inducement Risks
A recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advisory opinion highlights concerns that valuable free products and other inducements may influence patients and providers to choose one manufacturer’s product over another, notwithstanding that such free healthcare products may be a benefit, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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Attorneys' Busiest Times Can Be Business Opportunities
Attorneys who resolve to grow their revenue and client base in 2024 should be careful not to abandon their goals when they get too busy with client work, because these periods of zero bandwidth can actually be a catalyst for future growth, says Amy Drysdale at Alchemy Consulting.
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In The World Of Legal Ethics, 10 Trends To Note From 2023
Lucian Pera at Adams and Reese and Trisha Rich at Holland & Knight identify the top legal ethics trends from 2023 — including issues related to hot documents, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity — that lawyers should be aware of to put their best foot forward.
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How Attorneys Can Be More Efficient This Holiday Season
Attorneys should consider a few key tips to speed up their work during the holidays so they can join the festivities — from streamlining the document review process to creating similar folder structures, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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Top 10 Whistleblowing And Retaliation Events Of 2023
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and federal and state courts made 2023 another groundbreaking year for whistleblower litigation and retaliation developments, including the SEC’s massive whistleblower awards, which are likely to continue into 2024 and further incentivize individuals to submit tips, say attorneys at Proskauer.
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Children's Book Writing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Becoming a children's book author has opened doors to incredible new experiences of which I barely dared to dream, but the process has also changed my life by serving as a reminder that strong writing, networking and public speaking skills are hugely beneficial to a legal career, says Shaunna Bailey at Sheppard Mullin.
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The State Of CFPB Focus On Credit Reporting Of Medical Debt
An increase in credit reporting complaints and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent annual report on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act — which focuses on medical debt in credit reporting — are both evidence of the fact that the bureau will continue to prioritize oversight of credit reporting of medical debt, says Kristen Watson at Burr & Forman.
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FDA's Recent Litigation Records Are Strong, But Imperfect
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has notched its share of litigation wins in recent years thanks to a number of key advantages, but the FDA has been less successful in certain highly visible arenas, Jonathan Berman and Colleen Heisey at Jones Day.