Policy & Compliance

  • July 31, 2026

    Voluntary Benefits Suits Emerge As New ERISA Battleground

    A recent crop of proposed class actions targeting employers' insurance-related voluntary benefits offerings — for things like critical illness or hospital indemnity — marks a litigation trend that appears to be gaining, experts say.

  • July 30, 2026

    Health Plans Ask 2nd Circ. To Revive Celgene Cancer Drug Row

    Health plans and pharmacies backed by Cigna are asking the Second Circuit to revive a proposed class action alleging Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and its Celgene subsidiary fraudulently obtained patents, filed sham lawsuits and paid off generic-drug makers to maintain a monopoly on the blockbuster blood cancer drug Pomalyst.

  • July 30, 2026

    Albertsons Can't Nix 14 Years Of Opioid Claims At Wash. Trial

    Albertsons and Safeway can't dodge 14 years' worth of claims in Washington state's lawsuit accusing the grocery stores' pharmacies of irresponsibly dispensing prescription opioids and fueling the state's overdose crisis, according to a Seattle judge's ruling Wednesday striking the companies' statute-of-limitations defense.

  • July 30, 2026

    O'Reilly Auto Parts Can't Dodge Tobacco Surcharge Suit

    O'Reilly Automotive Inc. must face a former employee's lawsuit alleging he was unlawfully charged hundreds of dollars more per year for health insurance because he used tobacco, with a Missouri federal judge ruling Thursday that his claims were detailed enough to stay in court.

  • July 30, 2026

    Judge Keeps New Medicaid 'Frailty' Proof Rule In Place

    A Massachusetts federal judge late Wednesday declined to block the government from requiring medically frail Medicaid recipients to prove they are significantly impaired to avoid a new requirement that they engage in 80 hours of work or volunteering per month or attend school part-time.

  • July 29, 2026

    Albertsons Pharmacy Work Was 'House Of Cards,' Judge Told

    Albertsons pharmacists in Washington state repeatedly warned supervisors that busy workloads and limited staffing were making it difficult to review prescriptions before filling them, a state judge in Seattle heard Monday, during a bench trial in Washington's case accusing Albertsons and its Safeway subsidiary of fueling the state's opioid crisis.

  • July 29, 2026

    Novo Faces Narrowed Investor Suit Over Obesity Drug Claims

    A New Jersey federal judge narrowed a proposed securities class action against Novo Nordisk, preserving claims that it misled investors about the CagriSema obesity drug's tolerability and a flexible protocol used in a clinical trial.

  • July 29, 2026

    Colo. Hospital Patients In Gender Care Suit Seek Class Cert.

    Transgender adolescents urged a Colorado state judge Wednesday to allow them to proceed as a certified class in their lawsuit seeking to have Children's Hospital Colorado resume providing gender-affirming care for them and other transgender youth patients, arguing the class is "objectively definable."

  • July 29, 2026

    Health Economist's Report Cleared For Generic-Drug MDL

    The Pennsylvania federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation over generic-drug price-fixing claims has ruled that Humana's health economist's expert report can be admitted into evidence, rejecting several pharmaceutical companies' argument that his findings were based on a flawed methodology.

  • July 29, 2026

    NC Attorney General's Clash With HCA Cleared For Trial

    The North Carolina Business Court has cleared a path to trial in the state attorney general's suit accusing HCA Healthcare of letting the quality of care at Mission Hospital in Asheville languish.

  • July 28, 2026

    Ed Dept. Can't Cancel K–12 Mental Health Grants Worth $1B

    A Washington federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration on Tuesday from terminating nearly $1 billion in K–12 mental health grants serving 15 states, finding that the plaintiff states are likely to prove the U.S. Education Department bypassed federal procedures when attempting to cut off the funds.

  • July 28, 2026

    J&J $5.5B Talc MDL Deal, $25.4M Cooley Judgment And More

    Law360 Healthcare Authority looks at Johnson & Johnson's $5.5 billion commitment in a proposed settlement to resolve thousands of suits alleging its talcum powder products caused ovarian cancer, a New Jersey state court's order that Cooley LLP pay $25.4 million in litigation over its representation of a biotech founder, and other key resolutions in healthcare litigation over the last week.

  • July 28, 2026

    No COVID Immunity For Mich. Hospitals In Malpractice Revival

    Just because a motion is unopposed doesn't mean it should be granted, Michigan appellate judges said in a published opinion Tuesday, reversing a trial court's decision that the Pandemic Health Care Immunity Act shielded Beaumont Hospital Farmington Hills from a medical malpractice suit.

  • July 28, 2026

    Judge Mulls Pausing Medicaid Work Rule For 'Frail' Recipients

    A Massachusetts federal judge said Tuesday he anticipates deciding by the end of the week whether the Trump administration will have to pause part of a new rule states must follow in determining whether medically frail Medicaid recipients are exempt from new work or school requirements.

  • July 28, 2026

    Nursing Facility Pays $15M In Calif. AG's Understaffing Suit

    Sweetwater Care and its affiliates agreed to resolve the California attorney general's consumer protection suit alleging they understaffed their skilled nursing facilities in more than 14,000 instances, exposing patients to neglect, abuse and injury with delayed care, while the defendants accepted nearly $200 million from Medicare and Medi-Cal.

  • July 28, 2026

    340B Appellate Cases To Watch In The 2nd Half Of 2026

    Drugmakers are pressing appellate judges in the back half of 2026 to strike down state laws blocking them from restricting 340B contract pharmacy arrangements. Law360 Healthcare Authority has the cases to watch.

  • July 28, 2026

    Med Center To Pay $200K To End EEOC Disability Bias Probe

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Tuesday that a California medical center has agreed to pay $200,000 to wrap up an investigation into a nurse's claim that it violated disability bias law by firing her instead of letting her transfer to another role.

  • July 27, 2026

    Albertsons Opioid Trial Told Of Needles, ODs In Library

    A witness in Washington's case accusing Albertsons Cos. Inc. of fueling the state's opioid crisis testified at a bench trial Monday that problem drug use was evident in a city library system she's led for nearly a decade, pointing to syringes scattered across the facility and multiple instances of overdoses.

  • July 27, 2026

    Wash. Panel Revives Island Health Wage, Break Class Action

    A Washington Court of Appeals panel has reinstated a worker's proposed class action accusing public hospital district Island Health of denying employees meal breaks and illegally rounding time worked when calculating wages, finding Monday that a trial court wrongly concluded the claims must be arbitrated under a union agreement.

  • July 27, 2026

    Cigna Must Face Pa. Suit Over Portal Health Data Tracking

    A Pennsylvania federal judge on Monday allowed a group of Cigna health plan participants to pursue most of their claims alleging the company unlawfully disclosed their protected health information for marketing purposes by using an Adobe tracking pixel.

  • July 27, 2026

    Hygiene Co. Can't Fight FTC's Need To Back Up COVID Claims

    Xylitol-based hygiene products company Xlear can't challenge the Federal Trade Commission's general insistence that companies "substantiate" health claims like COVID-19 protections, because the FTC isn't currently suing over those claims, a Utah federal judge ruled Monday.

  • July 27, 2026

    Health Data Co. Inks $4.8M Settlement To End Investor Suit

    The health diagnostics company formerly known as Sema4 has reached a $4.8 million settlement with investors accusing the company of misleading them about a nonexistent, artificial intelligence-driven data platform it claimed to operate.

  • July 24, 2026

    Va. Court Orders FDA To Reconsider Mifepristone Restrictions

    A Virginia federal judge held that a 2023 regulation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration unlawfully placed prescribing restrictions on the abortion drug mifepristone, agreeing with a group of abortion providers that the agency inadequately addressed burdens on the healthcare system.

  • July 24, 2026

    Federal Bill Seeks CDC Set-Aside For Tribal Health

    A coalition of U.S. lawmakers from New Mexico and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have introduced legislation that would guarantee that tribal nations have equal access to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Emergency Preparedness program.

  • July 24, 2026

    Yale Age Test, Allergy Death, Wine Royalties: A Midyear Report

    In the second half of 2026, Connecticut courts are being called upon to decide closely watched issues such as whether the state's largest hospital group violated federal disability and age discrimination laws when requiring providers over age 70 to undergo mandatory cognitive tests.

Expert Analysis

  • A Meaningful Shift In FDA's Biosimilarity Analysis

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    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's potential pivot away from routinely requiring comparative efficacy studies for interchangeable biosimilar applications would not lower regulatory standards, but instead allow applicants to allocate resources toward establishing more probative evidence, says Theodore Thompson at Stinson.

  • Top 5 Antitrust Issues For In-House Counsel To Watch In 2026

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    With Trump administration enforcement policy having largely taken shape last year, antitrust issues that in-house counsel should have on the radar range from scrutiny of technology-assisted pricing to the return of merger remedies, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

  • 2025 Legal Milestones That Will Shape Psychedelics Sector

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    As 2025 draws to a close, psychedelic drug development stands at an inflection point, experiencing unprecedented momentum through recent sweeping regulatory changes and landmark clinical milestones, amid rapidly evolving regulatory expectations, say Odette Hauke at Odette Alina LLC and Kimberly Chew at Husch Blackwell.

  • 2025 State AI Laws Expand Liability, Raise Insurance Risks

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    As 2025 nears its end, claims professionals should be aware of trends in state legislation addressing artificial intelligence use, as insurance claims based on some of these liability-expanding statutes are a certainty, say attorneys at Wiley.

  • Learning From 2025 FCA Trends Targeting PE In Healthcare

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    False Claims Act enforcement trends and legislative developments from this year signal intensifying state and federal scrutiny of private equity's growing footprint in healthcare, and the urgency of compliance, says Lisa Re at Arnold & Porter.

  • How 11th Circ.'s Qui Tam Review Could Affect FCA Litigation

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    On Dec. 12, the Eleventh Circuit will hear arguments in U.S. ex rel. Zafirov v. Florida Medical Associates, setting the stage for a decision that could drastically reduce enforcement under the False Claims Act, and presenting an opportunity to seek U.S. Supreme Court review of the act's whistleblower provisions, say attorneys at Epstein Becker.

  • How MAHA Is Taking Shape At The State Level

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    The national spotlight on the federal government's Make America Healthy Again movement is bolstering state-level actions regarding potential health impacts of certain food ingredients, increasing the difficulty and importance of maintaining effective compliance programs, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • A Look At Middlemen Fees In 340B Drug Discount Program

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    A U.S. Senate committee's recent hearing on the Section 340B drug discount program, along with statistical analysis of payment amounts, contribute to a growing consensus that middlemen fees are too high, say William Sarraille at the University of Maryland, and Shanyue Zeng and Rory Martin at IQVIA.

  • Nursing Home Abuse Cases Face 3 Barriers That Need Reform

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    Recent headlines reveal persistent gaps in oversight and protection for vulnerable residents in long-term care, but prosecution of these cases is often stymied by numerous challenges that will require a comprehensive overhaul of regulatory, legal and financial structures to address, says Veronica Finkelstein at Wilmington University.

  • Mulling Differing Circuit Rulings On Gender-Affirming Care

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    Despite the Eleventh Circuit's recent holding in Lange v. Houston County that a health plan's exclusion for gender-affirming surgery did not violate Title VII, employers should be mindful of other court decisions suggesting that different legal challenges may still apply to blanket exclusions for such care, say attorneys at Smith Gambrell.

  • State AGs May Extend Their Reach To Nat'l Security Concerns

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    Companies with foreign supply-chain risk exposure need a comprehensive risk-management strategy to address a growing trend in which state attorneys general use broadly written state laws to target conduct that may not violate federal regulations, but arguably constitutes a national security threat, say attorneys at Wiley.

  • Unique Aspects Of Texas' Approach To AI Regulation

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    The Texas Responsible AI Governance Act — which will soon be the sole comprehensive artificial intelligence law in the U.S. — pulls threads from EU and Colorado laws but introduces more targeted rules with fewer obligations on commercial entities, say attorneys at MVA Law.

  • Surveying The Healthcare Policy Landscape Post-Shutdown

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    With last week's agreement to reopen the federal government, at least through the end of January, key healthcare legislation that has been in limbo since a December 2024 spending bill fell apart may recapture the attention of Congress, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.