Month: May 2021

Hugh M. Lee, “The False Claims Act and COVID-19: A Potential Avenue for Relief for Nursing Home-Acquired Infection and Injury?” 361 Elder Law Advisory 1 (April 2021).

This article is a follow up to one Prof. Lee did last year on state common law immunity from claims for COVID-19 infection and a subsequent presentation he did to the Alabama Bar in which he calls into question the governor’s use of authority under Alabama’s Public Health Emergency Act to grant immunity.

The article essentially addresses whether the Federal False Claims Act might provide a possible cause of action against nursing homes for COVID-19 infection and injury. Nursing homes have been granted broad immunity in most states from common negligence and malpractice claims under public health emergency statutes and state executive orders related to COVID. So the question many have been asking is whether these nursing homes, almost all of which receive federal funding, might be liable for failing to comply with rules and regulations related to Medicare and Medicaid under the False Claims Act.

Daniel Xu presented his recent research results on rural health policy and chaired two panels on health policy and public health at Midwest Political Science Association Conference, April 14-18, 2021. His research presentation titled “Rural Health Policy: Views from Service Providers and Program Administrators” surveyed the physicians in North Carolina and administrators of state rural health programs across the country on their views on several aspects of rural health and rural health services, including rural health challenges, obstacles to the access to rural health services, effectiveness of current rural health programs, and policy initiatives to improve rural access to care. His study identified key obstacles to rural health and rural health services, but also found that views diverged significantly on obstacles to rural health services and effectiveness of policy initiatives but not as much as on the effectiveness on the existing rural health policies and programs. For future rural health policies and programs to be more effective, policymakers and program administrators should take into consideration these obstacles as well as these divergent views.