Policy & Compliance
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December 02, 2025
U Of Colo. To Pay $10M In Religious Bias Suit Over Vax Policy
The University of Colorado's medical school will pay $10.3 million to a group of employees and students who claimed in federal court that their religious exemption requests to the university's COVID-19 vaccine mandate were unlawfully denied, according to the group's attorneys.
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December 02, 2025
Lawyers Adapt To Crop Of New FDA Pilots
A slew of new FDA pilot programs is forcing life science attorneys to adjust to a new reality of programs that shed bureaucratic processes and eschew some of the typical push-and-pull with industry players.
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December 02, 2025
Health Hires: Goodwin Partner Joins Incyte, Gilead GC Exits
Law360 Healthcare Authority looks at the week's most notable personnel changes in the healthcare and life sciences industries.
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December 02, 2025
Post-Gazette Publisher Tries Again To Pause Benefits Order
If the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette must restore its union-represented editorial staff's pre-2020 healthcare benefits, it will shut down, the newspaper's publisher claimed in a brief filed with the Third Circuit, requesting another shot at pausing an injunction that compelled the paper to restore the benefits.
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December 02, 2025
Defamation Litigation Roundup: FDA, Lively, Alexander Bros.
In this month's review of defamation fights, Law360 highlights a pharmaceutical company's suit against a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration official, as well as the latest decision siding against President Donald Trump in his fights with media companies.
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December 02, 2025
5th Circ. Wary Of FDA Process Behind Rule For New Vapes
A Fifth Circuit panel appeared skeptical Tuesday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration properly accounted for how a new rule for premarket authorization of new tobacco products would affect small businesses in the industry.
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December 02, 2025
Breast Pump Co. To Pay $1M For Alleged Tricare Overbilling
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania reached a $1 million settlement with a breast pump company and its owner, resolving allegations that they submitted false claims for reimbursement for service members and their families.
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December 02, 2025
Plan Members Assert Standing In Cigna Data Breach Fight
A group of Cigna health plan participants who claimed that the company failed to protect their data when it tracked their website activities asked a Pennsylvania federal judge not to throw out the suit, arguing that the proposed class had standing to sue over the alleged violations of state and federal privacy laws.
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December 02, 2025
Under New Chair, Fed. Vax Panel To Redo Hep B Vote
The new chair of an influential federal vaccine advisory panel is set to lead a vote this week on whether to roll back federal recommendations that newborns get vaccinated against hepatitis B.
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December 02, 2025
Justices Skeptical Of NJ Subpoena For Anti-Abortion Donors
Several U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared sympathetic Tuesday to an anti-abortion pregnancy-center network's bid to challenge a subpoena from the New Jersey attorney general, pressing the state on whether its demand for donor identities and internal documents risked unconstitutionally chilling First Amendment associational rights.
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December 02, 2025
Safe-Injection Site Ignites New Religious Liberty Debate
Law360 Healthcare Authority talks to Benjamin A. Barsky of the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco about safe injection sites, religious liberty arguments in healthcare, and a Third Circuit ruling with possible ramifications for both.
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December 02, 2025
Conflict Looms Over State Medical Debt Credit-Report Bans
An about-face by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on medical debt and credit reports is animating a legal debate over preemption and state-level prohibitions meant to protect consumers.
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December 02, 2025
Hospital Says EEOC Neglected Presuit Conciliation Obligation
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission failed to satisfy its conciliation obligations before filing an age discrimination lawsuit against a Colorado hospital, the facility told a federal court, arguing that the case should be paused for the parties to try to work out a deal.
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December 02, 2025
$4.6M Garnet Health Deal Over Retirement Plan Gets Initial OK
A New York federal judge granted initial approval Tuesday to a $4.6 million class action settlement between Garnet Health Medical Center and workers who challenged their employee retirement plan's fees and investments, which comes after parties reported a deal to end the case in September.
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December 01, 2025
Hospitals Slam HHS' Move From Drug Discounts To Rebates
The American Hospital Association is leading litigation challenging the Trump administration's abrupt changes to a decades-old program governing the distribution of discounted prescriptions to low-income patients, telling a Maine federal court Monday that the government is unlawfully ignoring the costly impacts a rebate system will have on hospitals.
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December 01, 2025
1st Circ. Tosses Omni's Medicare Fraud Suit Over UTI Tests
A First Circuit panel declined to revive Omni Healthcare's False Claims Act suit accusing MD Labs of billing Medicare for unnecessary urinary tract infection tests, explaining in a published opinion Monday that Omni Healthcare's own staff ordered each test — sometimes even replacing doctors' orders for cheaper tests with the pricier ones.
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December 01, 2025
2nd Circ. Backs Anti-Abortion Groups' Free Speech Rights
New York Attorney General Letitia James can't sue faith-based groups promoting a so-called treatment to reverse medication-induced abortions, finding the groups are likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment challenge, the Second Circuit said Monday.
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December 01, 2025
J&J Narrows Ex-Employees' Prescription Benefits Suit
Johnson & Johnson narrowed a proposed class action claiming it unlawfully overcharged employees through a prescription drug benefits program, with a New Jersey federal judge ruling workers leading the suit failed to show how allegedly excessive fees the company paid to a benefits manager caused participants' costs to rise.
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December 01, 2025
Judge Upholds Mich. MedMal Cap, Cuts $8.5M Verdict
A Michigan federal judge has slashed the $8.5 million a jury awarded to the estate of a cancer patient suing over his doctor's treatment decisions to about $615,000, ruling that a state law limiting noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases is constitutional.Â
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November 26, 2025
Up Next At High Court: ISP Liability & State Subpoena Suits
The U.S. Supreme Court will return Monday for the first week of its December oral argument session, during which the justices will consider whether internet service providers can be held liable for contributing to their customers' infringing activity online and whether the subjects of state subpoenas are required to first challenge them in state court.Â
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November 26, 2025
Nurse For App-Based Health Co. Can't Revive Retaliation Suit
A Washington appeals court refused to revive a nurse's suit claiming she was fired from an app-based medical provider for complaining that it underpaid and overworked independent contractors, ruling she failed to show her termination was because of her concerns rather than reports that she was unprofessional.
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November 25, 2025
UnitedHealth Gets OptumRx Antitrust Suit Sent To Arbitration
A group of independent pharmacies must arbitrate their proposed class claims that UnitedHealth-owned OptumRx gatekeeps its network of Medicare prescription patients by imposing unfair fees, a Washington federal judge said Tuesday, concluding the pharmacies haven't shown the arbitration clauses in question are unenforceable.
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November 25, 2025
Mich. Pharmacist Gets 46 Months For $4M Fraud Scheme
A former Michigan pharmacist who pled guilty to orchestrating a $4 million Medicare scam was sentenced by a federal judge to 46 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution and forfeit property as part of a plea deal, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
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November 24, 2025
9th Circ. Clarifies FTC's Sanction Power In Backing $7M Win
The Ninth Circuit affirmed Monday a $7.3 million compensatory sanction and asset-freeze injunction against executives behind the "Success By Health" pyramid scheme, rejecting their argument, among others, that the justices' AMG v. FTC ruling requires the Federal Trade Commission to hold administrative proceedings before suing over rule violations.
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November 24, 2025
Teamsters Health Plan Wants Data Breach Suit Tossed
A Massachusetts federal judge should toss a proposed class action accusing a Teamsters healthcare plan of failing to protect plan participants' personal information, the plan argued, seeking dismissal of a suit that seeks to hold the plan liable for an August data breach.
Expert Analysis
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Criminal Healthcare Fraud Takeaways From 4th Circ. Reversal
After the Fourth Circuit reversed a doctor’s postconviction acquittal in U.S. v. Elfenbein last month, defense attorneys should consider three strategies when handling complex criminal healthcare matters, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.
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AG Watch: Texas Embraces The MAHA Movement
Attorneys at Kelley Drye examine Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's actions related to the federal Make America Healthy Again movement, and how these actions hinge on representations or omissions by the target companies as opposed to specific analyses of the potential health risks.
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How States Are Regulating Health Insurers' AI Usage
The absence of a federal artificial intelligence framework positions states as key regulators of health insurers’ AI use, making it important for payors and service providers to understand the range of state AI legislation being passed in California and elsewhere, and consider implementing an AI-focused compliance infrastructure, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.
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HHS Plan To Cut Immigrant Benefits Spurs Provider Questions
A recent notice from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services identifying new federal public benefit programs for which nonqualified aliens are not eligible may have a major impact on entities that participate in these programs — but many questions remain unanswered, say attorneys at Foley.
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Noncompete Forecast Shows Tough Weather For Employers
Several new state noncompete laws signal rough conditions for employers, particularly in the healthcare sector, so employers must account for employees' geographic circumstances as they cannot rely solely on choice-of-law clauses, say lawyers at McDermott.
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Previewing State Efforts To Regulate Mental Health Chatbots
New York, Nevada and Utah have all recently enacted laws regulating the use of artificial intelligence to deliver mental health services, offering early insights into how other states may regulate this area, say attorneys at Goodwin.
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How DOJ's New Data Security Rules Leave HIPAA In The Dust
The U.S. Department of Justice's recently effective data security requirements carry profound implications for how healthcare providers collect, store, share and use data — and approach vendor oversight — that go far beyond the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, say attorneys at Nelson Mullins.
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Texas Med Spas Must Prepare For 2 New State Laws
Two new laws in Texas — regulating elective intravenous therapy and reforming healthcare noncompetes — mark a pivotal shift in the regulatory framework for medical spas in the state, which must proactively adapt their operations and contractual practices, says Brad Cook at Munsch Hardt.
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DOJ-HHS Collab Crystallizes Focus On Health Enforcement
The recently announced partnership between the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to combat False Claims Act violations, following a multiyear trend of high-dollar DOJ recoveries, signals a long-term enforcement horizon with major implications for healthcare entities and whistleblowers, say attorneys at RJO.
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How The Healthline Privacy Settlement Redefines Ad Tech Use
The Healthline settlement is the first time California has drawn a clear line in the sand around how website tracking must function in practice, so if your site uses tracking technologies, especially around sensitive content like health or finance, regulators are inspecting your website's back end, not just its banner, say attorneys at Baker Donelson.
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How Sweeping Budget Bill Shakes Up Health Industry
With the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act marking one of the most significant overhauls of federal health policy since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, providers, managed care organizations and life sciences companies must now shift focus from policy review to implementation planning, say advisers at Holland & Knight.
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New DOJ Penalty Policy Could Spell Trouble For Cos.
In light of the U.S. Department of Justice’s recently published guidance making victim relief a core condition of coordinated resolution crediting, companies facing parallel investigations must carefully calibrate their negotiation strategies to minimize the risk of duplicative penalties, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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A Look At Key 5th Circ. White Collar Rulings So Far This Year
In the first half of 2025, the Fifth Circuit has decided numerous cases of particular import to white collar practitioners, which collectively underscore the critical importance of meticulous recordbuilding, procedural compliance and strategic litigation choices at every stage of a case, says Joe Magliolo at Jackson Walker.