In New Jersey bridge scandal federal judge criticizes BigLaw firm's 'unorthodox approach'

"A federal judge is taking Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher to task for failing to preserve contemporaneous interview notes in an investigation that found no wrongdoing by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in a lane closing scandal In a decision (PDF) on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton of Newark said the law firm took an “unorthodox approach” by overwriting lawyers’ electronic interview notes to produce an edited, final version.. . . .“Although [Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher] did not delete or shred documents,” Wigenton wrote, “the process of overwriting their interview notes and drafts of the summaries had the same effect. This was a clever tactic, but when public investigations are involved, straightforward lawyering is superior to calculated strategy. The taxpayers of the state of New Jersey paid GDC millions of dollars to conduct a transparent and thorough investigation. What they got instead was opacity and gamesmanship. They deserve better.”" More.

Originally posted in ABA Journal News by Debra Cassens Weiss, Dec. 17, 2015

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Little-known hospital billing practice can negate Medicare coverage of later nursing-home stay

"Under rules implementing the Affordable Care Act, hospitals can be penalized if too many patients return for further treatment within 30 days of being discharged.
So, to avoid the penalty, a number of hospitals are admitting return patients under “observation status” to keep them out of the readmission statistics. Although patients get the same treatment, taxpayers save money because the hospitals generally get reimbursed at a lower “outpatient” rate for observation patients, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports.
However, the practice can prove costly for consumers. As outpatients, they may be required to cover a larger portion of the bill than they would be charged as inpatients. And, for those who need to spend time at a nursing home after being released from the hospital, Medicare won’t pay the bill. Under the program, individuals must be formally admitted to the hospital for three days prior to the nursing home stay for it to be covered by Medicare, and “observation” patients don’t meet that requirement."
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Originally posted in ABA Journal News by Martha Neil, Dec. 3, 2015

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