News & Legal Updates Archive

The Supreme Court of Ohio rendered its second decision on Nov. 5, 2015, regarding Ohio’s Dormant Mineral Act in the case of Chesapeake Exploration LLC v. Buell, with significant implications for oil and gas producers as well as landowners and owners of mineral rights involving Utica Shale.

Medicare site neutral payment provisions in Section 603 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 will restrict the ability of health systems to benefit from Medicare hospital outpatient reimbursement rates after acquiring a physician practice or ambulatory surgery center.

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 will result in a significant increase in the premiums paid by defined benefit pension plans covered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

On Oct. 21, 2015, the IRS announced cost of living adjustments affecting dollar limitations for pension plans and other retirement-related items for the 2016 tax year.

More and tougher payer audits are hitting an expanding number of clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups in recent months. Across the nation, experts in medical laboratory billing and collections are reporting that health insurers are auditing for a host of issues, several of them unexpected and without precedent.

Estate planning attorneys have been using discounting techniques as an important part of wealth transfer planning for many years. Recently, there have been indications that regulations will be issued soon by the Treasury Department that will significantly curtail this practice.

A lot of hourly workers are about to get raises — millions of them, in fact. And Ohio’s employers might be affected more than most.

October 5, 2015, the United States and 11 other countries – Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam – announced they have reached a monumental trade agreement impacting more than 40 percent of the world’s economy and a third of global trade.

T-Mobile announced that the company it partnered with to run credit checks had suffered a security breach, which allowed hackers access to sensitive data of 15 million T-Mobile credit applicants. The exposed information included the names, addresses, birthdays, and encrypted Social Security numbers and/or encrypted driver’s license or passport numbers of approximately 15 million people who applied for T-Mobile services between September 1, 2013 and September 16, 2015.

The Boston Division of the FBI announced a $558,793 settlement with Strata Pathology Laboratory, Inc. on Oct. 1, 2015, to settle allegations that the laboratory violated the federal False Claims Act.

To minimize your cyber risk, it is important to have a clear understanding of what critical information and assets you possess, how they are maintained, and what can be accessed. This includes:

Personally identifiable information
Protected health information
Business information

The FCC clarified that efaxes submitted by a conventional fax machine are subject to The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), requiring in most cases prior express consent or an existing business relationship even though the transmission was converted into an email.

Editor's Note: Next week Pope Francis is scheduled to visit DC. He arrives on Tuesday the 22nd and will address a joint session of Congress on Thursday the 24th. Unless you are coming into DC for the express purpose of seeing the Pope, you might want to consider changing your plans; the entire city is expected to be a logistical nightmare.