Francis J Serbaroli

September 29, 2004 | New York Law Journal

Francis J. Serbaroli, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, warns that the warning signs of the coming storm are up. In the aftermath of the Enron, WorldCom and Tyco debacles, the next area for government and media scrutiny will probably be the compensation being paid to top executives of not-for-profit organizations.

By Francis J. Serbaroli

12 minute read

August 05, 2005 | New York Law Journal

Francis J. Serbaroli, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, analyzes New York's statutory confidentiality protections for hospital peer review and quality assurance records and also outlines steps that a facility should take to protect such records and avoid inadvertently waiving confidentiality protection.

By Francis J. Serbaroli

13 minute read

November 30, 2007 | New York Law Journal

Francis J. Serbaroli, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, writes that perhaps nowhere has the health care fraud problem been more painfully evident than in New York's Medicaid program. Since coming into office, Governor Spitzer and Attorney General Cuomo have made this a top priority. Their appointees will have no shortage of cases to pursue, with some obvious targets for audit or investigation.

By Francis J. Serbaroli

11 minute read

December 22, 2005 | New York Law Journal

Francis J. Serbaroli, a partner in Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, writes that amidst surprisingly little media coverage, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg recently signed into law an important bill unanimously passed by the City Council that affects anyone doing business with or presenting a claim to the City of New York.

By Francis J. Serbaroli

12 minute read

May 30, 2006 | New York Law Journal

Francis J. Serbaroli, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, writes that most patients have little or no familiarity with the arcane world of how a hospital charges for its services. The prices charged by hospitals vary greatly from facility to facility and from payor to payor. Hospital's "charges" or "list prices" are basically very high retail prices that a hospital would like to charge everyone, but which in fact are steeply discounted for Medicare, Medicaid and insurers.

By Francis J. Serbaroli

12 minute read

September 28, 2010 | New York Law Journal

Francis J. Serbaroli, in his Health Law column, analyzes a recent decision by a New York State administrative law judge that refused to allow the Office of Medicaid Inspector General to apply extrapolation to an audit sampling. He notes that this is probably only a temporary setback for the Inspector General, and that the rest of the decision is a warning to health care providers about the importance of complying with Medicaid's detailed recordkeeping requirements.

By Francis J. Serbaroli

10 minute read

July 26, 2011 | New York Law Journal

Francis J. Serbaroli, in his Health Law column, reviews a law enacted in 2010 that allows the state Department of Education to grant waivers from the prohibition on corporate practice of the professions for psychotherapists, social workers, and certain other mental health professionals employed by not-for-profit, religious, charitable and educational organizations. He notes that this law carves out a few narrow exceptions, but that the general corporate practice prohibition is still very strict.

By Francis J. Serbaroli

10 minute read

January 30, 2008 | New York Law Journal

Francis J. Serbaroli, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, writes that one of the major developments in health law over the past 20 years has been the efforts by both federal and state governments to give greater protections to the confidentiality of every patient's medical information. Yet, with all the investments and improvements health care institutions have made to protect this information and comply with the laws and regulations, breaches are still too common an occurrence.

By Francis J. Serbaroli

11 minute read

May 30, 2008 | New York Law Journal

Francis J. Serbaroli, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, writes that every custodian of medical information has a serious legal and moral obligation to safeguard the confidentiality of that information. Even negligent and inadvertent disclosures of medical information can have potentially devastating consequences for the patients involved. As is the case in so many types of tortious conduct, compensatory damages may not be an adequate remedy. However, it remains to be seen whether the threat of punitive damages will really encourage greater compliance with confidentiality mandates.

By Francis J. Serbaroli

9 minute read

December 10, 2008 | New York Law Journal

Francis J. Serbaroli, a shareholder in Greenberg Traurig, writes: It seems to make perfect sense. Elderly patients often have difficulty getting to the hospital by public transportation, or can't afford cab fare. So, a not-for-profit hospital, as a community service, begins offering to provide transportation to these elderly patients at no cost in order to help them get to their appointment at the hospital. Simple - except that in the complex and convoluted world of health care in general and Medicare in particular, the hospital doing so may violate the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute.

By Francis J. Serbaroli

13 minute read