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04/28/21
Jon L. Gelman
The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) will not review the pre-emption issue involving air ambulance billing charges. A
Petition for Certiorarithat was denied was filed by PHI Air Medical, LLC following the
denial of the Texas Supreme Court to honor the full air ambulance billing changes in a workers compensation claim.
Medical benefits are a significant factor in the overall costs of most state workers compensation programs. The ability to contain those costs is at the very heart of the viability of most workers compensation systems. Federal preemption of state medical fee schedules and regulations is a prevailing challenge to the patchwork of non-uniform state benefit programs.
Friday, April 16, 2021
Antitrust cartel and related collusive scheme enforcement is poised to increase. Several factors support this: (1) the Antitrust Division (the Division) has a 10% budget increase for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021; (2) proposed legislation that would increase its budget by $300 million; (3) Democratic administrations have traditionally been more aggressive in enforcing antitrust laws; (4) according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), last year the Division opened the most grand jury investigations in almost 20 years and by the end of 2020 had the most open grand jury investigations in a decade; (5) increased coordination with international law enforcement agencies, including the Division recently signing a number of cross-border agreements, maintaining active memberships in multilateral organizations dedicated to cross-border antitrust enforcement cooperation and a DOJ official recently noting they have been working at strengthening their relationships w
Continued Impact of COVID-19
The measures taken by the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation (the “DFR”) in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have been extended through 2021. These include a recognition that in-person board meetings in Vermont may not be feasible until travel restrictions have been relaxed. Captives are invited to request a waiver of the physical presence requirement for their 2021 annual meetings.
2021 Captive Legislation
Despite its focus on the State’s COVID-19 response, the Vermont legislature is on track to pass its annual captive “housekeeping” bill, which was jointly proposed by the DFR and the Vermont Captive Insurance Association. The current version of the bill includes the following notable provisions:
Tuesday, March 9, 2021
In January, former President Donald Trump signed the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act (CHIRA), which partially eliminated health and dental insurers’ decades-old exemption from federal antitrust laws under the McCarran-Ferguson Act for practices constituting the “business of insurance.” While CHIRA includes important carve-outs that preserve several previously recognized immunities, certain collaborative practices between health and dental insurers may be newly subject to federal antitrust scrutiny. Health and dental insurers should carefully assess their collaborative practices to ensure they do not run afoul of newly applicable federal antitrust laws.
THE MCCARRAN-FERGUSON ACT PRE-CHIRA
et seq., was passed decades ago in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in