Above the Law
Posts by Above the Law
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Government, Health Care / Medicine
Congressman Launches Investigation Into Medicaid Prior Authorization Denials
U.S. Representative Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-New Jersey) announced that he is looking into high prior authorization denial rates by Medicaid managed care health plans. It follows a report by the Office of Inspector General that found that Medicaid MCOs denied one out of every eight prior authorization requests in 2019. - Sponsored
Clio Users: New Ways To Add Value To Your Practice!
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Courts, Health Care / Medicine
43K Patients In California Could Get Refunds, Bill Corrections As Part Of Discounted Care Settlement
Santa Clara Valley Healthcare in California has begun notifying 43,000 patients about their eligibility for billing corrections and refunds. The system’s patient outreach effort is a result of a recently settled lawsuit. In the complaint, former patients alleged the county did not inform them about its hospitals' charity care and discount payment policies, leading them to have to pay large bills.
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 08.18.23
* White House Counsel Stuart Delery is leaving the job next month. Where will the revolving door land? Probably Gibson Dunn. [Law360]
* State judge blocks Texas law that barred Houston — and only Houston — from running its local elections after the city started electing Black women. [AP]
* NY Times mulls suing OpenAI to prevent GPT from learning how to compose whataboutism takes that put David Brooks out of a job. [NPR]
* We knew Thomson Reuters planned to buy Casetext for $650 million. It’s now official. [Legaltech News]
* Yes, you can lose your job for posting about committing vehicular manslaughter against Black people. [Reuters]
* Supreme Court could improve its legitimacy by hewing closer to rigorous policy analysis. They can’t even do rigorous historical analysis, how are they supposed to do rigorous policy analysis? [Milken Institute Review]
* Before getting indicted for joining criminal coup-spiracy, Ken Chesebro was a Larry Tribe research assistant. [ABA Journal]
* EEOC considers renewing race and gender pay reports. Raising concerns about litigation from anti-affirmative action forces who are so sure that discrimination doesn’t exist that they don’t want anyone checking their work. [Bloomberg Law News]
* Fired attorney calls cops on partner. [Roll on Friday]
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In-House Counsel, Technology
Now Live At The Non-Event: The Legal Operations Buyers Guide!
Get the latest on this all-important area. -
Courts, Government
CMS Lowers No Surprises Act Fee After Court Nixes Price Hike
This move came a week after the Texas Medical Association won a court case challenging HHS over its 600% price hike on the fee. - Sponsored
Documenting Secured Transactions: A New Guide For Practitioners
A newly updated PLI treatise provides both the legal framework and practical guidance on documenting secured transactions, including important details about 2022 amendments to the UCC. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 08.17.23
* Fifth Circuit judges anoint themselves pharmaceutical scientists to determine that the FDA probably didn’t understand mifepristone when its scientists exercised their statutory and regulatory authority. So now judges are historians, neurologists, and drug scientists. Yale and Harvard JDs really prepare you to be jackasses of all trades! [Reuters]
* Speaking of judges acting as neurologists, the Federal Circuit backtracked to avoid that charge and cited Judge Pauline Newman’s reticence to hand over medical records of a cardiac event as the key justification to ban her from the court. Which fails their own twisted rationale since a risk of heart attack has no bearing on a judge’s faculties. But in any event, they’re cardiologists now, too. [Law360]
* It took a matter of hours for Trump supporters to publicly circulate the names and addresses of Georgia grand jurors. [NBC]
* By nixing student loan forgiveness, the Supreme Court likely also jacked the market by robbing it of 401(k) investment. [Bloomberg Law News]
* Law firms are generally uninterested in a fully remote workforce — which is understandable in some practice areas. But somehow this is going to get conflated with hybrid work models and some dumb firm is going to think it has cover to fully end working from home — to the delight of the firms looking to poach. [American Lawyer]
* Fox News needs a new CLO after the last one presided over the company accumulating upwards of a billion in liability. Who would want this job? [Corporate Counsel]
* Freshfields managing partner races in FIA bronze level events in his spare time. [LegalCheek]
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Biglaw, Technology
Is Your Firm’s Cybersecurity Strategy Keeping Clients Away?
Tell us your worst fears in this brief, anonymous study and receive a chance at a $250 gift card. -
Government, Health Care / Medicine
House Reps Introduce Bill To Ease State Medicaid Staffing Shortages Amid Redeterminations
The bill would allow state Medicaid agencies to hire outside contractors to help with Medicaid redeterminations, as many agencies don’t have the workforce to handle the return to the redetermination process. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 08.16.23
* Judge Edith Jones writes a letter to the Wall Street Journal blasting the Federal Circuit’s actions to sideline Judge Pauline Newman. [Wall Street Journal]
* Blind Side subject Michael Oher has filed to end the conservatorship of the couple he lived with. Oher alleges that he believed he was being adopted when in reality he handed over substantial financial rights and no one checked for almost two decades. [Bloomberg Law News]
* Black lawyer says he was handcuffed while a judge ordered him to produce documents or settle the case. [ABA Journal]
* Lawsuit claims that state law illegally favors Iowa wineries. In other news, Iowa has wineries. [DMR]
* Class action suits filed against Hawaiian utility companies over fires. [Law.com]
* ABA considering rule requiring law schools to adopt written free speech policies. No way this just turns into a cudgel for powerful interests to squelch protest under the moniker of “free speech.” Yep, no way at all! [Reuters]
* Former FBI agent admits taking cash from sanctioned Russian oligarchs. [Law360]
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Government, Health Care / Medicine
HHS Launches Civil Rights Investigation Into Vanderbilt’s Sharing Of Transgender Patient Data
Vanderbilt University Medical Center is under federal investigation after it turned transgender patients’ medical records over to Tennessee’s attorney general. HHS launched the investigation a couple weeks after two VUMC patients filed a class-action lawsuit against the hospital for releasing their records to the attorney general.
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Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 08.15.23
* Keep track of who’s who in the latest indictment. [Politico]
* Meanwhile, Abbe Lowell and Winston & Strawn have stepped up their collective role in the Hunter Biden case, arguing that the original plea agreement included binding government promises that didn’t evaporate just because the judge rejected the deal. [Law360]
* CFPB going after data brokers selling people’s personal data. Yet again, the government agency making the most direct, tangible impact for people is the one that still worries that every election might be its last. [Bloomberg Law News]
* Justice Department urges Supreme Court to deal with unconstitutional social media laws out of Texas and Florida. [Reuters]
* Has “flexibility” lost all meaning when it comes to law firm office scheduling? No. Just because some law firms try to engage in flexibility newspeak, doesn’t actually change its meaning. [American Lawyer]
* AI may not be ready to replace lawyers, but the California Innocence Project is leveraging the tool to assist in pursuit of justice. [ABA Journal]
* London Kirkland team headed to Paul Weiss resigned on a Sunday in a power move. [LegalCheek]
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Technology
Can’t Make It To ILTACON? It’s Happening All Year On ATL!
We’re pleased to introduce ‘ILTA on ATL,’ our newest legal tech center. -
Government, Health Care / Medicine
Senator Probes Google About ‘Premature Deployment Of Unproven Technology’ In Healthcare Settings
Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) penned a letter to Google leadership expressing concerns about Med-PaLM 2 — the company’s generative AI tool for healthcare providers that is currently being used by Mayo Clinic and other health systems. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 08.14.23
* It took a couple of days, but Donald Trump has blown off Judge Chutkan’s warning that further public attacks on the proceedings would result in accelerating the existing January trial schedule. At the rate he’s going, expect the trial next week! [Politico]
* Meanwhile, in Georgia, prosecutors apparently have messages directly tying Trump’s legal team to voting system breach. [CNN]
* Florida Bar proposes allowing law school grads to engage in limited practice before passing the bar exam. One of many emergency measures required to make sure Donald Trump and his fellow indictees can secure local counsel. [Jax Daily Record]
* Law.com lists lawyers on social media it considers attorney-influencers. [Law.com]
* UPS reached an agreement with its workers, but it had strikebreaking plans all worked out. [Bloomberg Law News]
* Judge charged with murdering wife. [Law360]
* Sam Bankman-Fried off to Brooklyn MDC after judge finds witness tampering efforts in violation of bail, bringing renewed publicity to the facility’s abhorrent conditions. [Reuters]
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Fashion, Finance
Tapestry, Inc. Acquires Capri Holdings For $8.5 Billion
The deal combines a total of six luxury brands: Coach, Kate Spade New York, Stuart Weitzman, Michael Kors, and Versace. -
Finance, Health Care / Medicine
Healthcare M&A Activity Reaches 3-Year Low, But It Might Pick Up In The Back Half Of ‘23
M&A activity in the healthcare sector continued to decline in the second quarter of 2023, with the number of deals reaching its lowest point in three years. However, a new report predicted that M&A activity could increase in the second half of this year due to healthcare companies’ continually shrinking valuations and their divestitures of non-core assets. -