Author: Alissa Smith

Alissa represents health systems, hospitals, pharmacies, long-term care providers, home health agencies and medical practices, as well as nonprofit and municipal organizations. Alissa’s transactional practice includes contracts, leases, mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. Alissa’s regulatory practice includes the interpretation and application of state and federal fraud and abuse laws, Medicare and Medicaid rules, tax-exemption laws, HIPAA and privacy laws, EMTALA laws, licensing matters, employment laws, governmental audits and open records and open meetings matters. She also assists with corporate and health system governance issues, including the revision and negotiation of medical staff bylaws.

HIPAA on the Horizon in the New Year: Important Lessons from an Active 2023 and Regulatory Initiatives to Watch for in 2024

2023 marked 20 years since the first compliance deadline under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (“HIPAA”) privacy rule. Despite the two decades of experience with HIPAA, compliance continues to remain a challenge for HIPAA-covered entities as well as for their business associates. 2023 brought a large number of important HIPAA-related developments and lessons-learned...

HHS OCR Settles HIPAA Investigation with Business Associate for $350,000

Over the past decade, the number of health care data breaches reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) has increased dramatically. From 2009 to 2022, over 5,000 data breaches affecting 500 or more records were reported to OCR, accounting for the exposure of over 380 million health...

Covid-19 Requirements for Healthcare Employers: A Recap of Where Things Stand

There is a lot going on right now for healthcare employers.  The first phase of CMS’s vaccine mandate is in full effect nationwide (now including Texas), the CDC has changed masking guidance in some circumstances, and it has been two months since OSHA let the Health Care Emergency Temporary Standard expire.  To help you navigate...

U.S. Supreme Court Lifts Injunction Against CMS’ Health Care Facility Vaccine Mandate: What Does This Mean for Your Health Care Facility?

Health care employers are not alone in feeling overwhelmed by the constantly changing legal status of the various federal vaccine mandates.  On Thursday afternoon, the Supreme Court made its rulings on two preliminary challenges to workplace mandates related to the COVID-19 pandemic: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for large...

Limited Preliminary Injunction Issued for CMS Vaccine Mandate

On November 29, 2021, a federal court in Missouri enjoined the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) vaccine mandate in the following states: Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.  Those ten states filed a lawsuit on November 10, 2021, challenging the vaccine mandate and requesting a...

CMS’ COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate: What Health Care Providers and Suppliers Need to Know

**Note that a federal court has issued a temporary injunction stopping the CMS COVID-19 vaccine mandate in certain states.  Please read our blog post here for the latest information on this injunction. Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published their much-anticipated rules mandating...

Biden Administration Orders Long Term Care Facilities to Require COVID-19 Vaccinations To Receive Federal Funds; OSHA Issues Updated COVID-19 Recommendations For All Workplaces

As we have previously written, the landscape for employers in the time of COVID-19, particularly health care employers and long term care facilities, is ever-changing and quickly moving.  In the last year, health care employers have had to navigate state laws, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services...

Update Regarding Publication of OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard

On June 10, 2021, Dorsey’s Labor & Employment attorneys outlined an Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) issued by OSHA.  At the time, the ETS was not an official regulation because it had not yet been published in the Federal Register.  On June 21, 2021, the ETS was published and, for covered healthcare employers, the compliance clock...

Considerations for Health Care Employers under Iowa’s Vaccine Passport Law and Recent CDC, CMS and EEOC Guidelines

One of the last pieces of legislation the Iowa legislature sent to Governor Kim Reynolds’ desk for guaranteed signature was a bill banning vaccine passports in Iowa.  House File 889 contains several prohibitions regarding inquiries into a person’s COVID-19 vaccine status.  For entities that contract with the state government or otherwise receive state funding, the...