HEALTHCARE
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2025
MORE OF 2024 IN REVIEW
New HIPAA Privacy Protections for Reproductive Healthcare A new HIPAA rule finalized in April added more compliance requirements aimed at supporting reproductive healthcare privacy. The rule impacts healthcare providers, employer-sponsored group health plans, and other covered entities. Data Breach Laws Impact Industry A California federal court ruled in July that disclosure of certain data collected through website cookies that may qualify as health information could trigger a data breach under the CCPA – a decision that should cause healthcare companies to rethink data privacy practices. Nursing Facilities Ordered to Pay $36M A group of nursing facilities in Pennsylvania was recently ordered to pay a whopping $36 million in overtime pay and damages to workers who claimed their employers deliberately paid them less than they actually earned. Here’s what you need to know about the lawsuit and a 10-step plan to avoid the same fate.
Continued Staffing Shortages Unfortunately, we predict that long-standing staffing issues in the industry will persist in 2025. COVID-19 intensified staffing shortages that already created challenges for healthcare employers in prior years, and we have not seen the rebound we hoped for in recent years. Indeed, consulting firms predict that these challenges aren’t going away any time soon. You’ll need to stay proactive when it comes to your recruitment and retention strategies. Private Equity Firms Will Continue to Acquire Healthcare Providers We’ll see a continued push by private equity firms in 2025 to acquire and merge healthcare providers using “roll-up” strategies. We expect this to have the most impact on family practices, dentists, eye doctors, and radiology groups. This will create unique issues for physician-owned practices and may require them to proactively prepare employment agreements for the physicians. Immigration Focus Will Impact Foreign Healthcare Workers In a tight labor market, employers often seek to fill vacant roles with qualified foreign nationals. Since immigration reform was a centerpiece of the first Trump administration, we anticipate more of the same during the second term. We’ll see the Trump administration curtail the reliance on highly skilled foreign workers, throwing roadblocks up for employers who rely on solutions like the H-1B visa program. Union Activity May Die Down … A Little Labor advocates have enjoyed the Biden administration’s pro-union actions over the past few years, but we expect that to change a bit in 2025 with the new administration rebalancing the scales when it comes to federal labor law policy. Just as President-elect Trump rolled back Obama-era NLRB rules in his first term, we predict he’ll do the same this time around and give employers more leeway. But there’s a caveat: Trump’s appeals to organized labor on the campaign trail and recent nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer to lead the Department of Labor indicate that his administration may have a different approach this time around. This highlights the importance of ensuring compliance with recent NLRB decisions until changes are officially made.
2024 PREDICTIONS RECAP
Labor Organizing Continued Union organizing at healthcare organizations has been a key trend for the last few years – and we correctly predicted it would continue well into 2024. Indeed, we saw record highs when it comes to petition filings and elections in the industry. For the overall workforce, data from the NLRB showed that petitions for union elections doubled from FY2021 to FY2024. And Fisher Phillips’ Union Organizing Activity Map revealed that SEIU – the largest healthcare union in North America – continued to be one of the most active when it comes to petition filings. To minimize disruptions in 2024, employers needed to be proactive with workplace relations. Staffing Shortages Persisted We correctly predicted that healthcare facilities, unfortunately, would continue to experience staffing shortages in 2024. This is another trend that has persisted over the last few years, and many employers explored alternative staffing models to try easing some of the pain. Wage and Hour Carveouts California’s healthcare minimum wage increase finally took effect in October, hiking wages to $21 per hour for workers at many healthcare facilities and as high as $23 per hour for workers at dialysis clinics and large healthcare systems. Although we expected to see other states follow California’s lead and pass similar measures – buoyed by the support of labor unions and worker advocates – this trend has yet to take hold in other locations.
HOW’D WE DO ON OUR PREDICTIONS?
We got the predictions MOSTLY RIGHT
Hannah Sweiss
Laurel K. Cornell
Woodland Hills/Los Angeles Partner and Co-Chair, Healthcare Industry Group hsweiss@fisherphillips.com
Louisville Regional Managing Partner and Co-Chair, Healthcare Industry Group lcornell@fisherphillips.com
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