Stites & Harbison, PLLC

Next month, the Ohio High School Athletic Association (“OHSAA”) member schools will vote on whether to allow high school athletes to be paid for the name, image, and likeness (“NIL”). If approved, Ohio will join Alaska, California, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, and Utah, which already allow high school athletes to profit from their NIL. Other states, like Tennessee and Mississippi, recently amended their NIL statutes in a manner that will likely allow for NIL in high school sports.

In December 2020, Congress signed into law the No Surprises Act (NSA) addressing surprise medical billing. Specifically, the NSA prohibits out-of-network health care providers and facilities from balance billing certain commercially insured patients in certain circumstances.

The federal No Surprises Act (the “NSA”) requires all healthcare service providers to provide accurate and reliable cost estimates (Good Faith Estimates) to patients paying cash for services. The NSA’s Good Faith Estimate requirement has not received the media or industry press enjoyed by the balance billing prohibitions applicable to out-of-network (“OON”) emergency services providers, OON ancillary service providers at in-network facilities, and OON air ambulance providers, but may actually be the biggest surprise in the NSA.

Last month, a jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina found a former executive of Ohio-based Contech Engineered Solutions LLC, Brent Brewbaker, guilty of conspiracy to rig bids, conspiring to commit fraud, and related charges on over 300 North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) projects. Brewbaker faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for the bid-rigging conspiracy count and 20 years for each of the other counts.