Floyd, Skeren & Kelly’s “Annual Employment Law Conference” now enters its 7th year. This year the firm has another stellar group of employment law and workers’ compensation experts to present a comprehensive learning experience for employers, human resource administrators, risk managers and claims adjusters on important topics impacting the workplace.

Kevin Kish, Director of the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) will be the keynote speaker during an important year for employers as we transition to a new President and federal administration, along with the inevitable changes in employment law and regulations that will follow.

Tina Walker, Regional Administrator for the DFEH will be joining Mr. Kish to provide her valuable input on the topics covered.

Mark ‘RX Professor’ Pew from PRIUM, will cover recent developments impacting employer policies on marijuana in the workplace and to address the many questions that have arisen since the passage of Proposition 64.

This years conference sessions will include:

1) Expanded Employee Protections: Key Developments on Conducting Lawful Background Checks, Transgender Protections, and Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation Policies
2) New Laws Impacting Work Place Drug Testing- The Good, the Bad and the Unknown
3) HR Compliance is Complicated – 2017 Update Includes New Legislation, Cases and Key Trends Impacting the Workplace
4) Reducing the Risk of Costly Disability Discrimination Claims – Recommendations for Employer Best Practices (Legislative and Case Law Update Included)
5) Workers’ Compensation Case Law Update
6) Employer’s Fraud Task Force Update
7) Post Brinker-Costly Class Actions For Meal And Rest Period Violations Continue- Key Strategies For Avoiding Liability
8) Is My Employee Drunk, Sick or Simply Sleeping- Training Managers on ‘Reasonable Suspicion’ Based Drug Testing
9) Defending Good Faith Personnel Actions and Post-Termination Workers’ Compensation Claims
10) 2017 Hot Topics in Workers’ Compensation

Please see our Complete Agenda for more details.

The Conference is set for April 28, 2017 from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm at the Disneyland Hotel, 1150 Magic Way in Anaheim. Our conference is in the approval process for MCLE, CE, SPHR, HRCI and Credits for ARPM, CPDM and CCMP.

First came Martin Shkreli, the brash young pharmaceutical entrepreneur who raised the price for an AIDS treatment by 5,000 percent. Then, Heather Bresch, the CEO of Mylan, who oversaw the price hike for its signature Epi-Pen to more than $600 for a twin-pack, though its active ingredient costs pennies by comparison.

Now a small Virginia company called Kaleo is joining their ranks. It makes an injector device that is suddenly in demand because of the nation’s epidemic use of opioids, a class of drugs that includes heavy painkillers and heroin.

Called Evzio, it is used to deliver naloxone, a life-saving antidote to overdoses of opioids. And as demand for Kaleo’s product has grown, the privately held firm has raised its twin-pack price to $4,500, from $690 in 2014. Founded by twin brothers Eric and Evan Edwards, 36, the company first sought to develop an Epi-Pen competitor, thanks to their own food allergies. Now, they’ve taken that model and marketed it for a major public health crisis. It’s another auto-injector that delivers an inexpensive medicine.

And the cost of generic, injectable naloxone – which has been on the market since 1971 – has been climbing. A 10-mililiter vial sold by one of the dominant vendors costs close to $150, more than double its price from even a few years ago, and far beyond the production costs of the naloxone chemical, researchers say. The other common injectable, which comes in a smaller but more potent dose, costs closer to $40, still about double its 2009 cost.

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill on Thursday asked Kaleo Pharmaceuticals to justify the more than 550 percent surge in the price of its device to treat painkiller overdoses, becoming the second senator to question Evzio’s $4,500 price tag.  Senator Amy Klobuchar sent Kaleo a letter earlier this month, voicing similar concerns.

Evzio contains the overdose-reversing drug naloxone and can be used in emergencies by people without medical training. Privately held Kaleo has raised the price of a twin-pack to $4,500, from $690 in 2014, according to a Kaiser Health News report.

The concerns over Evzio’s price comes at a time when pharmaceutical companies are facing intense scrutiny over “price-gouging”, and as lawmakers struggle with the epidemic of opioid abuse.

“At a time when Congress has worked to expand access to naloxone products and to assist state and local communities to equip first responders with this life-saving drug, this startling price hike is very concerning,” McCaskill said in a letter to Kaleo Chief Executive Spencer Williamson. The letter, which was signed by 30 U.S. senators, asked Kaleo for information on Evzio’s price structure and why the company chose to adjust prices.

“We received the letter from the Senators and are in communication with them to ensure all questions are addressed,” Williamson told Reuters in an e-mailed statement.

“There’s absolutely nothing that warrants them charging what they’re charging,” said Leo Beletsky, an associate professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University in Boston.

A federal judge has blocked the proposed $54 billion merger of two major health insurance companies, Anthem and Cigna, after the Justice Department concluded that the deal would reduce competition in the health insurance market and raise prices.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia made the ruling.

Anthem is determined to ensure Wednesday’s decision isn’t the final word on the issue. The company said in a statement Thursday that it “promptly intends to file a notice of appeal and request an expedited hearing.”

The Justice Department announced last summer that it would oppose both the Anthem-Cigna merger and one by Aetna and Humana, These are four of the major five insurers in the nation.

Both mergers have now been blocked in separate federal court cases citing adverse effects on competition and pricing.

Then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch said: “If allowed to proceed, these mergers would fundamentally reshape the health insurance industry. They would leave much of the multi-trillion dollar health insurance industry in the hands of three mammoth insurance companies, drastically constricting competition in a number of key markets that tens of millions of Americans rely on to receive health care. … If these mergers were to take place, the competition among these insurers that has pushed them to provide lower premiums, higher quality care and better benefits would be eliminated.”

The California Insurance Commissioner said “Today’s federal court decision to block the merger of two of the nation’s largest health insurers is a significant win for consumers who need more choice, not less, in an already highly concentrated health insurance market. Bigger was definitely not better when it comes to the Anthem-Cigna merger.”

“Last year I held an extensive public hearing on the proposed merger. After reviewing all the evidence, I concluded the Anthem-Cigna merger was bad for consumers and businesses, and bad for health insurance and health care markets. I issued detailed findings of fact and law and urged the U.S. Department of Justice to sue to block this merger because it is anti-competitive and would harm California consumers, businesses, and the California health insurance market.”

The commissioner concluded that “Allowing a merger between two of the largest health insurers in the country would have increased the price of health insurance, and decreased choice and the quality of healthcare for consumers and businesses. I am very pleased the federal district court entered a decision consistent with my findings and legal conclusions that the Anthem-Cigna merger is anti-competitive.”

The long arm of the pharmaceutical industry continues to pervade practically every area of medicine, reaching those who write guidelines that shape doctors’ practices, patient advocacy organizations, letter writers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and even oncologists on Twitter, according to a series of papers on money and influence published in JAMA Internal Medicine and an article on NPR.

Researchers Ray Moynihan and Lisa Bero wrote in an accompanying commentary that the “very way we all think about disease – and the best ways to research, define, prevent, and treat it – is being subtly distorted because so many of the ostensibly independent players, including patient advocacy groups, are largely singing tunes acceptable to companies seeking to maximize markets for drugs and devices.”

More than two-thirds of patient advocacy organizations that responded to a survey indicated that they had received industry funding in their last fiscal year. For most, the money represented a small share of their budget. But 12 percent said they received more than half of their money from industry.

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC) recently developed guidelines for prescribing opioids for chronic pain. When the draft guidelines were released , there was criticism. Some organizations argued that the development of the guidelines was not transparent and the recommendations were based on weak evidence. Subsequently, the CDC postponed the release of the guidelines and opened them to public comment for a 30-day period.

Researchers Moynihan and Bero analyzed these comments to identify levels of support for the guidelines and whether financial relationships with opioid manufacturers were associated with opposition to the guidelines. The final guidelines were released in March 2016.”

158 organizations formally submitted comments after the proposed guidelines were released in February 2016, and 80 percent of them were supportive, though some had recommendations for changes. Organizations that received funding from opioid manufacturers were less supportive of guidelines proposed by the CDC to limit prescribing of the drugs for chronic pain.

Of the 158 organizations, 45 (28.5%) received funding from opioid manufacturers, 25 (15 .8%) had funding ties to other companies in the life sciences, 64 (40.5%) received no funding from the life sciences industry, and funding of the remaining 24 (15.2%) was not known. Of the organizations that received funding from opioid manufacturers, none disclosed these funding sources in their comments; of the organizations that received funding from the life sciences industry, 6 (24%) disclosed their funding.

Fifty-two organizations (32.9%) were supportive of the guidelines without additional recommendations, 75 (47. 5%) were generally supportive with recommendations, 18 (11.4%) were generally not supportive with recommendations, and 13 ( 8.2%) were not supportive.

Opposition to the guidelines was more frequent among organizations with funding from opioid manufacturers than those without funding from the life sciences industry, both overall and for recommendations about limits on opioid dosing and the length of opioid treatment.

Among the 45 groups that received money from opioid makers, though, the level of support was only 62 percent. And none of those groups disclosed their funding sources in their comments. (The CDC did not ask or require them to do so.)

“More people are dying than ever before from these products, and it’s important to know how the market is shaped by the spending of drug companies,” G. Caleb Alexander, co-director of the Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness at Johns Hopkins 1University, said in an interview.

TeamHealth Holdings, Inc. is one of the nation’s largest providers of outsourced physician staffing solutions for hospitals. The company contracts with hospitals and physician groups in the areas of emergency medicine, hospital medicine, anesthesia and specialty hospitalist services. It also offers combined outsourcing services to single hospitals and hospital systems

TeamHealth has a growing presence in California. In 2014 it announced the acquisition of the operations of Burbank, Calif.-based Primary Critical Care Medical Group (PCCMG). Specializing primarily in hospital and critical care medicine, PCCMG provides clinical services through partnerships with four hospitals and two outpatient primary care clinics in the Southern California market.

IPC Healthcare Inc., was purchased by TeamHealth in November 2015. IPC is headquartered in North Hollywood, on Lankershim Boulevard. IPC manages hospitalist practice groups in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Inland Empire, and nationally. The transaction was valued at approximately $1.6 billion.

TeamHealth’s approximately 10,000 affiliated healthcare professionals provide emergency medicine, hospital medicine, anesthesia, urgent care, and pediatric staffing and management services to approximately 900 civilian and military hospitals, clinics, and physician groups in 46 states.

The Department of Justice just announced that TeamHealth Holdings, as successor in interest to IPC has agreed to resolve allegations that IPC violated the False Claims Act by billing Medicare, Medicaid, the Defense Health Agency and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program for higher and more expensive levels of medical service than were actually performed (a practice known as “up-coding”). Under the settlement agreement, TeamHealth has agreed to pay $60 million, plus interest.

The government contended that IPC knowingly and systematically encouraged false billings by its hospitalists, who are medical professionals whose primary focus is the medical care of hospitalized patients. Specifically, the government alleged that IPC encouraged its hospitalists to bill for a higher level of service than actually provided. IPC’s scheme to improperly maximize billings allegedly included corporate pressure on hospitalists with lower billing levels to “catch up” to their peers.

As part of the settlement, TeamHealth entered into a five-year Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA) with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) covering the company’s hospital medicine division. This CIA is designed to increase TeamHealth’s accountability and transparency so that the company will avoid or promptly detect future fraud and abuse.

The settlement resolves allegations filed in a lawsuit by Dr. Bijan Oughatiyan, a physician formerly employed by IPC as a hospitalist. The Act also allows the government to intervene and take over the action, as it did in this case. Dr. Oughatiyan will receive approximately $11.4 million from the settlement.