WCMSAs & LMSAs: Understanding the Actual Legal Requirements & Strategies to Navigate the Compliance Maze

SPEAKER: Thomas S. Thornton, III
Carr Allison | Birmingham, Alabama

Twenty years ago the “Patel Memorandum” was published by CMS which, in essence, created the “MSA” industry. Since the inception, the industry as a whole has attempted to navigate and address compliance while relying upon memorandums and published “guidelines” from CMS. But has such reliance been misplaced? With CMS’s publication of Section 4.3 of the WCMSA Reference Guide, mass confusion appears to have arisen again related to protecting Medicare’s future interest in the context of a workers’ compensation case and voluntary submission. Has Medicare gone too far? The industry also continues to wait for the promised guidance or regulations from CMS relating to LMSAs.

This session addresses the existing statutory and regulatory requirements related to compliance, the arguably unconstitutional analysis applied by CMS, whether the guidelines and memorandums carry the weight of law and quantifying and preparing to address the purported risk at hand.