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New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has signed a bill requiring hospitals licensed under New Jersey Statutes Title 26 to report demographic data on COVID-19 cases. To the extent they have not already done so, hospitals affected by the new law should initiate data collection protocols on the demographics of COVID-19 patients by including age, ethnicity,…

The New Jersey Legislature has passed a bill requiring hospitals licensed under New Jersey Statutes Title 26 to report COVID-19-related demographic data (e.g., age, ethnicity, gender, and race) to the New Jersey Department of Health (DOH). Previously, the Governor required specific healthcare facilities to report personal protective equipment inventory (see our article, New…

When can employees who may have been exposed to COVID-19 return to work? Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises that “critical infrastructure workers may be permitted to continue work following potential exposure to COVID-19, provided they remain asymptomatic and additional precautions are implemented to protect them and the community.” This…

With first responders on the front lines of helping to fight the coronavirus, sharing information about potential exposure to COVID-19 is critical to protecting them and preventing further spread. In these situations, the information shared is most often “protected health information” (PHI) under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule.…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have issued guidance to help employers monitor and respond to the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). OSHA has a webpage dedicated to COVID-19 that provides background on the virus and identification of potential exposure hazards, as well as details…

As the coronavirus spreads across the globe and in the United States, providers, businesses, employers, and others are struggling to understand what medical information they can collect and what information they can share. These are difficult questions the answers to which involve considering factors such as long-standing compliance requirements (e.g., HIPAA, ADA, GINA, state law),…

Plaintiffs who assisted physicians, nurses, and others with transitioning to new computerized patient-management systems in hospitals and other health care facilities nationally were denied FLSA conditional certification to the extent the plaintiffs sought to include workers who were not assigned to a Minnesota project at issue or not Minnesota residents due to specific jurisdiction considerations.…

The outbreak of a new coronavirus that is believed to have began in central Chinese city of Wuhan and now appears to be spreading to the United States is driving concerns for organizations around preparedness regarding their operations, their customers, and their employees. In the healthcare sector, as with prior contagious disease outbreaks, fears about…

Rapid Emergence of Consumerism

Healthcare consumers continue to pay more and more toward their out-of-pocket healthcare costs, driving a shift away from volume-based compensation models toward outcomes-based payment arrangements. By all accounts, meaningful consumerism in the healthcare market is rapidly emerging.

Historically, healthcare transactions were business-to-business encounters with traditional healthcare business processes that tended to…