Robert E. Wanerman, Senior Counsel in the Health Care and Life Sciences Practice in the Firm’s Washington, DC office, was quoted in an April 14, 2008, article in Modern Healthcare on a judge’s decision to temporarily bar the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) from moving forward with a Medicare competitive-bidding demonstration project in San Diego.
The article, “Setting Limits: Injunction on Bidding Could Restrict HHS’ Options,” noted that the judge’s decision is expected to have far-reaching consequences on the agency’s freedom to define and structure the bidding processes for future demonstration projects, although it is too soon to predict the outcome of this case.
“Any time you have the court invalidate a program’s rulemaking process, that says you have to go back and do it right,” Wanerman said. He explained that the judge’s decision, although preliminary, showed that HHS is limited in its powers to interpret and define inclusion criteria for demonstration projects.