CMS Abandons Nursing Home Arbitration Appeal

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) “ditched its Fifth Circuit appeal of a decision blocking the agency’s ban on mandatory nursing home arbitration,” writes Law360.

The CMS policy, which was finalized in September of 2016, barred nursing homes from using mandatory arbitration clauses. CMS’s legal authority to implement such a ban was quickly challenged and won a preliminary injunction in federal court, leading to CMS’s Fifth Circuit appeal.

CMS choose to drop the appeal “without explanation.”