David O’Neal Appointed as Vice-Chair of the American Health Law Association (AHLA) Health Care Liability and Litigation Practice Group
Jul 01, 2025
David O’Neal and Drew Stevens recently authored an article, “HHS (Once Again) Ramps Up Enforcement of Religious Conscience Protections in Healthcare,” published in the American Health Law Association’s AHLA Health Law Weekly.
The article analyzes multiple recent investigations announced by HHS into hospitals and healthcare systems for their alleged failures to accommodate the religious conscience preferences of individual clinicians. As these announcements make clear, HHS intends to strengthen the enforcement of these laws, and healthcare providers should expect an increase in enforcement activity in this area.
David and Drew also analyze the potential connection between these investigations and the newly announced “Civil Rights Fraud Initiative,” which seeks to use the False Claims Act to police violations of underlying federal civil rights law. David and Drew therefore recommend that healthcare providers devote renewed attention to compliance with federal conscience laws to mitigate any increased risk presented by HHS’s renewed focus in this area.
AHLA Health Law Weekly provides summaries of recent health law developments published by the American Health Law Association.
To read the full article, please click here.