The EEOC has filed suit in federal court against a home care provider, alleging it unlawfully discriminated against employees when it changed their work assignments to accommodate client preferences. EEOC v. ACARE HHC d/b/a Four Seasons Licensed Home Health Care, 23-cv-5760 (E.D.N.Y. July 31, 2023).

The suit alleges the home care provider “routinely would

Budgeting remains a critical issue as more hospitals and medical groups merge or become acquired in 2023. Budgeting questions commonly require a comprehensive review of physician compensation agreements.

Ideally, these agreements should be easy to understand. After all, doctors are generally paid by how many wRVUs (or relative work units) they produce. A wRVU is

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness month, and the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has provided a timely reminder for HIPAA covered entities and business associates to have a written incident response plan! To learn why another policy is needed, what an incident response plan needs to include, and the reporting obligations, read the

At the start of June 2022, the City of Los Angeles approved an ordinance to raise the minimum wage for certain healthcare workers at privately-owned healthcare facilities within the city. Since June, more cities have passed nearly identical ordinances. There is also a push for a California statewide healthcare minimum wage. However, no formal bill

Healthcare organizations across the United States are facing an unprecedented labor shortage. Many healthcare employers are moving quickly to implement creative solutions that will attract and retain a qualified workforce. Kaiser Health News reports that “after the pressure cooker of the past two-plus years led to staff turnover and a rash of early retirements, hospitals

Healthcare companies continue to face increased risks of ransomware attacks on their operations. According to the recently released BD Cybersecurity Annual Report for 2021, such attacks are also increasingly sophisticated. Management can take important steps to minimize the risks of this form of cybercrime.

Ransomware

Ransomware is malware that encrypts files on a device,

Employers in the healthcare setting have been grappling with issues related to COVID-19 vaccinations that raise many practical and legal questions, starting with: should we ask about vaccination status? Should we require employees to be vaccinated? If not required, should we encourage employees to be vaccinated? How should we encourage it? Identifying these questions is

Before the pandemic hit, remote work was, in most cases, a thing of the future. Concern about the productivity of remote workers caused many employers to resist these arrangements. Employees, they thought, would rather be taking care of laundry or kids than taking care of their duties. Enter Covid-19 – and most employers around the

In March 2021, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released results from a national survey conducted between February 22-26, 2021 of front-line hospital administrators at 320 hospitals across 45 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.  The purpose of the survey was to assess