Speakers:
Carson Lamb, Laura Morgan, Mara Sanders, & Alissa Smith.
Cost: $195 to NHA members (per hospital, no charge for additional lines, recordings available up to 60 days after the webinar)

Course Curriculum
The Department of Health and Human Services is planning for the federal public health emergency for COVID-19 to expire Thursday, May 11. Since the beginning of the public health emergency’s declaration three years ago, hospitals and other providers have relied on waivers of certain laws and government enforcement discretion as they’ve conducted pandemic-era operations. Now, the flexibility health care providers have become accustomed to is ending. Hear from a seasoned panel of health care attorneys about how to prepare. This panel session will provide practical guidance that hospitals can use to unwind reliance on these flexibilities. The session will include a detailed explanation of the blanket waivers of Medicare’s conditions of participation, telehealth waivers, fraud and abuse waivers, agency enforcement discretion, and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability and Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act implications.

Learning Objectives:
At the conclusion of this session, participants should be able to:
 Discuss the scope of federal waivers that have been issued.
 Identify the waivers that are anticipated to be extended.
 Identify the steps hospitals should take to prepare for the end of the federal public health emergency.
 Outline the consequences for failing to return to pre-public health emergency operations.

Speaker Bios:
Carson Lamb represents a variety of health care clients. Lamb’s practice focuses on transactional, regulatory and administrative matters at the state and federal levels. His transactional practice focuses on helping clients navigate and comply with complex regulatory requirements in mergers and acquisitions. Lamb’s regulatory practice is focused on various matters surrounding state and federal regulatory compliance.
Laura Morgan provides regulatory advice and transactional support to health care clients, including health systems, hospitals, medical practices and physician practice management organizations. Morgan has substantial experience counseling clients about compliance with the federal physician self-referral law, federal antikickback statute, Medicare reimbursement issues and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. She helps clients identify and address physician compensation arrangements that potentially implicate the Stark Law or the antikickback statute, including self-disclosure of such arrangements to the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Mara Sanders has extensive experience advising hospitals, health systems and academic medical centers about state and federal regulatory compliance, investigations and enforcement. Sanders helps health care providers understand and address risk under health care fraud and abuse laws, like the Stark Law, antikickback statute, and other state and federal health care and life sciences regulatory frameworks. Her expertise also includes reimbursement advising, defense of government and commercial payor audits and reimbursement appeals.
Alissa Smith is a partner with Dorsey and Whitney, where she represents health systems, hospitals, pharmacies, long-term care providers, home health agencies, medical practices, and nonprofit and municipal organizations. Smith’s transactional practice includes contracts, leases, mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. Her regulatory practice includes the interpretation and application of state and federal fraud and abuse laws, Medicare and Medicaid rules, tax-exemption laws, privacy, and Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act laws, licensing matters, employment laws, governmental audits, open records and open meetings matters. Smith represents health care providers before the State Health Facilities Council in certificate-of-need hearings and represents hospitals in medical staff and peer review matters.