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Medicaid & the Law

Legal, regulatory and strategic advice regarding America's largest health insurance payer, and one of the most complicated and least understood areas of healthcare law.

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How Pfizers Warranty Program Gets Around Best Price?
Blog October 14, 2021
On October 13th our friends over at STAT  broke the news [sorry, Paywall] about a warranty pilot program from Pfizer that offers both patients and health plans (including Medicare Part D plans) the opportunity to receive a refund for any amounts paid to purchase the companys longstanding oral lung cancer therapy XALKORI when use is discontinued in the first three months for clinical reasons…
CMS Weighs in on FDA Importation Rule
Blog September 28, 2020
On September 24, 2020 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took two major steps to implement its Safe Importation Action Plan, including publishing a new Final Rule allowing the importation of certain prescription drugs from Canada, and a Final Guidance describing procedures to allow manufacturers to obtain National Drug Codes (NDC) for FDA-approved drugs originally intended to be marketed in a foreign country ( referred to as “multi-market approved products” or “MMA products”)…
Paying for Value in Medicaid Prescription Drug Coverage
Blog July 05, 2020
My colleague Ross Margulies has already told our readers about a provision of the new proposed Medicaid regulation governing how the program pays for outpatient prescription drugs under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, or MDRP.  Today, we turn our attention to another provision of that proposed rule, and that is CMS's attempts to permit pharmaceutical manufacturers, states, and commercial payers to enter into value based payment arrangements for covered outpatient drugs…
In Latest Medicaid Rule, CMS Aims to Define Line Extensions
Blog June 18, 2020
As many of our astute readers are aware, on June 17, 2020 CMS released a long-awaited Medicaid proposed rule addressing a number of far-ranging issued involving Medicaid coverage and payment for prescription drugs, including new regulations to encourage the development value-based purchasing arrangements between states and manufacturers. Over the next several days we will be posting our thoughts on a number of these key policy proposals, including CMS…
Senate Finance Committee Proposes Significant Drug Pricing Reforms in Medicaid
Blog August 14, 2019
On July 25, 2019 the Senate Finance Committee voted to advance their long-awaited drug pricing package to the Senate floor (we anticipate a Floor vote sometime this Fall). The Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act (PDPRA) of 2019, as the package is called, proposes numerous drug pricing reforms across Federal healthcare programs (including Part B and Part D), but for todays blog post we will focus on some of the many Medicaid provisions included in the final mark-up…
Congress Not Ready To Forgive and Forget Mylan EpiPen Controversy
Blog December 07, 2018
Despite Mylan' $465 million settlement with the Department of Justice for overcharging Medicaid millions of dollars for its product EpiPen, Congress is not ready to let bygones be bygones.  In a display of bipartisanship, Sen. Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Wyden (D-OR) unveiled a bill (section-by-section summary) entitled “The Right Rebate Act” (RRA) on December 4, 2018 and explicitly cited the EpiPen experience as the chief motivating factor for its creation…

Blog Editors

About Our Blog

Foley Hoag has a unique team of healthcare lawyers and specialists with decades of experience in statutory and regulatory analysis, compliance, government investigations, litigation and corporate transactions. Most of our lawyers and healthcare policy specialists have had a direct hand in shaping virtually every healthcare law and regulation enacted over the past four decades, including:

  • The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010
  • The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003
  • The Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997
  • The Balanced Budget Act of 1997
  • The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)
  • Budget reconciliation laws of the 1980s

Medicaid is also, by far, the largest health insurance payer in the United States and has even surpassed Medicare in terms of the number of enrollees. Medicaid is a crucial component in America’s health care system.


Our focus includes:

  • Medicaid coverage and reimbursement issues for innovative pharmaceutical products
  • Legal, regulatory and strategic advice for Medicaid mental health providers and payers
  • Medicaid waivers
  • State coverage of the Medicaid expansion population
  • State-specific Medicaid issues
  • Medicaid financing
  • Medicaid and long-term care

Blog Editors