Health

  • December 18, 2024

    Top Conn. Cases Of 2024: Kickbacks, Paybacks And Bribes

    Judges and juries in Connecticut awarded several multimillion-dollar verdicts against companies big and small in 2024, socking Johnson & Johnson in a talc case in which the already substantial damages could multiply and ordering a pharmacy that paid kickbacks to cough up nearly four times the money it cost the state.

  • December 18, 2024

    Justices Will Decide If Medicaid Recipients Can Pick Providers

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday partially granted the state of South Carolina's petition to review a Fourth Circuit decision blocking its Medicaid program from ending its provider agreement with Planned Parenthood, agreeing to determine if the Medicaid Act allows a beneficiary to choose a specific provider. 

  • December 17, 2024

    NC Panel Revives Negligence Suit Against State Health Dept.

    An adult care center's constitutional claims accusing the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services of negligently asserting bogus penalties and unfairly suspending admissions at the facility are timely, a North Carolina state appellate panel ruled Tuesday, reviving a case that previously landed before the North Carolina Supreme Court.

  • December 17, 2024

    UNC Doctor Can't Shield Minor Transgender Patients' Records

    A University of North Carolina doctor cannot assert privilege over medical records sought from the university by state Republicans fighting a suit by the physician and others seeking to enjoin a law imposing limits on transgender care for minors, a federal magistrate judge has ruled.

  • December 17, 2024

    11th Circ. Urged To Block Abortion Clinic Buffer Zone Law

    A Florida anti-abortion group urged the Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday to give it another shot at an injunction preventing the city of Clearwater from enforcing a buffer zone ordinance that blocks the group from getting within five feet of the driveway to the city's only abortion clinic. 

  • December 17, 2024

    Express Scripts, OptumRx Can't Ditch LA County Opioid Suit

    A California judge ruled Tuesday that Los Angeles County can keep pursuing a lawsuit claiming pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts and OptumRx colluded with drugmakers to fuel the opioid epidemic, though the county must rework its complaint to specify how regulators were allegedly deceived.

  • December 17, 2024

    Sandoz Cuts $275M Deal For More Price-Fixing Claims

    Swiss drugmaker Sandoz said Tuesday it has reached a $275 million settlement to end claims from consumers, insurers and others in the sprawling multidistrict litigation over alleged price-fixing in the generic-drug industry.

  • December 17, 2024

    House GOP Asks CVS How Its PBM Treats Smaller Pharmacies

    Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are demanding documents from CVS on its pharmacy benefit manager's treatment of independent pharmacies, continuing to press the healthcare giant over potentially anticompetitive conduct.

  • December 17, 2024

    The Biggest Georgia Legal Developments Of 2024

    From navigating bombshell prosecutor romance allegations in the Georgia election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump and his co-defendants to vacating a $1.7 billion verdict against Ford Motor Co. in a fatal "Super Duty" rollover case, to seeing the state's longest-running criminal trial to a close, 2024 was a busy year for courts in the Peach State. 

  • December 17, 2024

    Feds Intervene In $200M FCA Case Against CVS

    The federal government has intervened in a whistleblower case accusing CVS and its subsidiaries of pocketing more than $200 million in overpayments, in order to defend the constitutionality of the False Claims Act's whistleblower provisions.

  • December 17, 2024

    Ariz. Families Seek Class Cert. Over Sober Home Living Scam

    A group of Arizona families is seeking class certification in an effort to hold the state and its healthcare agencies accountable for the so-called sober living crisis, arguing that despite knowing the magnitude of fraud that was occurring, it continued to enable the multibillion-dollar scam.

  • December 17, 2024

    4 Recent Policy Developments Benefits Attys Should Know

    A trio of federal agencies finalized new disclosure requirements for how health plans cover mental health treatments, states took steps to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, the U.S. Department of Labor's investment advice regulations failed in court, and Congress passed legislation to make compliance with the Affordable Care Act easier. Here, Law360 looks back at four policy-related developments in the employee benefits field from the latter half of 2024.

  • December 17, 2024

    IRS Finalizes Expanded 'Coverage Month' For Premium Credit

    The Internal Revenue Service finalized rules Tuesday that will expand the definition of a coverage month for purposes of computing the health insurance premium tax credit.

  • December 16, 2024

    Merger Enforcers End Year On Upswing

    The Biden administration's antitrust enforcers have boasted that one side effect of their aggressive approach to merger enforcement has been helping stop problematic deals from being cut in the first place, but the agencies also scored key court rulings blocking transactions in their final year that could have a more enduring effect.

  • December 16, 2024

    Health Education Biz Infringed Training Materials, NJ Suit Says

    A healthcare education company has accused a rival of infringing copyright-protected training materials for medical staff working in assisted living facilities, saying in a suit filed in New Jersey federal court that the copying is "blatantly obvious."

  • December 16, 2024

    UnitedHealthcare Shooting Suspect Hires Ex-NYC Prosecutor

    Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former veteran prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, has been retained to represent the man accused of killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare outside a hotel in midtown Manhattan earlier this month, a spokesperson for Agnifilo's firm said Monday.

  • December 16, 2024

    Pa. Malpractice Fund Belongs To State, 3rd Circ. Rules

    The Third Circuit said Monday in a precedential ruling that Pennsylvania's medical malpractice insurance fund is an agency of the state and that it can dip into the fund's $300 million budget surplus.

  • December 16, 2024

    11th Circ. Appears Wary Of Doc's New Trial Bid In $27.5M Case

    The Eleventh Circuit on Monday questioned whether a Georgia doctor and his medical practice should get a new trial in a $27.5 million False Claims Act case on the basis that he and an expert who wasn't allowed to testify at trial believed the thousands of treatments he billed for were medically necessary and could be covered by Medicare, saying that contention seems to contradict the doctor's prior statements. 

  • December 16, 2024

    The Biggest Patent Decisions Of 2024

    This year's notable patent decisions from the Federal Circuit provided clearer guidelines on double patenting and opened the door for new ways to invalidate design patents. Here's a look at the cases from 2024 that will shape patent litigation going forward.

  • December 16, 2024

    Justices Cite Loper Bright, Remand NLRB Successor Bar Case

    The U.S. Supreme Court remanded an NLRB dispute Monday about a Puerto Rico hospital's liability for withdrawing recognition from a union under the agency's successor bar standard, telling the D.C. Circuit to review its deference to the board under Loper Bright.

  • December 16, 2024

    With Legal Battle Looming, Neb. Legalizes Medical Marijuana

    Nebraska became the 39th state to legalize medical marijuana after supermajorities of voters approved ballot measures to decriminalize and regulate its sale, but the state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge from state officials that could invalidate it before implementation.

  • December 16, 2024

    Feds Ask To Speak With Juror In Failed $34M Kickback Trial

    Prosecutors on Monday asked a New Jersey federal judge if they could speak with the foreperson of a jury that acquitted a Philadelphia pharmacy executive of scheming to bilk $34 million from insurers by paying kickbacks, after the juror offered to share feedback ahead of a possible retrial.

  • December 16, 2024

    Conn. Justices Revive Widow's Suit Against UConn Hospital

    The state of Connecticut failed to properly challenge the claims commissioner's decision to issue a late ruling that allowed a widow to sue University of Connecticut entities for medical malpractice, so the case can survive, the state's high court found Monday in overturning a trial court's dismissal.

  • December 16, 2024

    The Biggest Massachusetts High Court Rulings Of 2024

    Massachusetts' highest court added two justices this year while taking up several novel legal issues, including one town's effort to phase out the sale of tobacco, a paralyzed Uber rider's fight against arbitration, and a dispute over whether a hospital website's use of tracking cookies violates the state wiretap statute.

  • December 16, 2024

    Dental Workers' Retaliation Appeal Nixed For Lack Of Docs

    A California appeals court declined to revive a suit brought by two dental office workers who claimed they were fired after complaining that their boss sexually harassed them, saying they hadn't provided enough details for the court to evaluate their case.

Expert Analysis

  • Navigating The Complexities Of Cyber Incident Reporting

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    When it comes to cybersecurity incident response plans, the uptick in the number and targets of legal and regulatory actions emphasizes the necessity for businesses to document the facts underlying the assumptions, complexities and obstacles of their decisions during the incident response, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • Takeaways From Novo Nordisk's Fight For Market Exclusivity

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    Generic competitors’ challenge to Novo Nordisk’s patents in hopes of capturing a portion of the rapidly expanding Type 2 diabetes and obesity treatment market highlights the role of abbreviated new drug application litigation, inter partes review and multidistrict litigation in patent defense, says Pedram Sameni at Patexia.

  • Secret Service Failures Offer Lessons For Private Sector GCs

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    The Secret Service’s problematic response to two assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump this summer provides a crash course for general counsel on how not to handle crisis communications, says Keith Nahigian at Nahigian Strategies.

  • A Primer On Navigating The Conrad 30 Immigration Program

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    As the Conrad 30 program opens its annual window to help place immigrant physicians in medically underserved areas, employers and physicians engaged in the process must carefully understand the program's nuanced requirements, say Andrew Desposito and Greg Berk at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Defending AI, Machine Learning Patents In Life Sciences

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    Ten years after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Alice v. CLS Bank, artificial intelligence and machine learning technology remain at risk for Alice challenges, but reviewing recent cases can help life sciences companies avoid common pitfalls and successfully defend their patents, say attorneys at Mintz.

  • Litigation Inspiration: Honoring Your Learned Profession

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    About 30,000 people who took the bar exam in July will learn they passed this fall, marking a fitting time for all attorneys to remember that they are members in a specialty club of learned professionals — and the more they can keep this in mind, the more benefits they will see, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • FTC Focus: How Scrutiny Of PBMs And Insulin May Play Out

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    Should Express Scripts' recent judicial challenge to the Federal Trade Commission succeed, any new targets could add litigation and choice of forum to their playbooks, and potential FTC court action on insulin could be forced to parallel venues as the issues between the commission and PBMs evolve, say attorneys at Proskauer.

  • Opinion

    AI May Limit Key Learning Opportunities For Young Attorneys

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    The thing that’s so powerful about artificial intelligence is also what’s most scary about it — its ability to detect patterns may curtail young attorneys’ chance to practice the lower-level work of managing cases, preventing them from ever honing the pattern recognition skills that undergird creative lawyering, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.

  • Takeaways From Texas AG's Novel AI Health Settlement

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    The Texas attorney general's recent action against a health tech company marks another step in rapidly proliferating enforcement against artificial intelligence and privacy issues across multiple states, and highlights important risk mitigation considerations for health companies that implement AI systems, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: September Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy identifies practice tips from four recent class certification rulings involving denial of Medicare reimbursements, automobile insurance disputes, veterans' rights and automobile defects.

  • Proposed Legislation May Crack Down On Online Drug Ads

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    A bill recently proposed in Congress could serve as a sea change in how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates drug-related speech, with significant trickle-down effects on various corners of not only the drug industry but also on consumers and providers themselves, say Dominick DiSabatino and Arushi Pandya at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Series

    Round-Canopy Parachuting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Similar to the practice of law, jumping from an in-flight airplane with nothing but training and a few yards of parachute silk is a demanding and stressful endeavor, and the experience has bolstered my legal practice by enhancing my focus, teamwork skills and sense of perspective, says Thomas Salerno at Stinson.

  • Navigating Restrictions Following Biotech Bill House Passage

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    Ahead of the BIOSECURE Act’s potential enactment, companies that obtain equipment from certain Chinese biotechnology companies should consider whether the act would restrict their ability to enter into contracts with the U.S. government and what steps they might take in response, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • What's In Colorado's 1st-Of-Its-Kind Neural Privacy Law

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    Colorado recently became the first U.S. state to directly regulate neurotechnology with new legislation amending the Colorado Privacy Act to specifically protect biological and neural data, offering an example of how lawmakers can tackle the perceived regulation gaps in this area, say attorneys at Goodwin.

  • What To Expect From Calif. Bill Regulating PE In Healthcare

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    A California bill currently awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom's approval, intended to increase oversight over private equity and hedge fund investments in healthcare, is emblematic of recent increased scrutiny of investments in the space, and may affect transactions and operations in California in a number of ways, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

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