The New York Times website now has a feature called the Small-Business Adviser, which offers small-business owners news and advice on a wide variety of topics related to the operation of their enterprise. It is available on the right-hand side of the small-business page, located here: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/business/smallbusiness.

Particularly helpful to small-business owners is this article discussing the importance of a business’s online reputation. All business owners should be aware of the online reviews of their business, which are available to potential customers across the World Wide Web. One way to keep on top of this is to setup a Google alert which scans the Internet for your business’s name and sends you an email when it has been mentioned.

If you are a small-business owner looking for further guidance on management and finance issues in your company, DLM Legal is available to help. Contact us at info@dlmlegal.com or 216.635.0002.

DLM Legal’s own Stephen Dodd has been named a 2012 Rising Star lawyer in the upcoming Ohio edition of Super Lawyers. This marks the fourth year in a row that Attorney Dodd has earned this accolade.

Rising Star lawyers are nominated by their peers in the legal profession. This distinction is reserved for attorneys 40 years old or younger who have been practicing law for 10 years or fewer. Only 2.5% of the lawyers in the state are named to the Rising Stars list. To learn more about this honor, visit: http://www.superlawyers.com/about/selection_process.html

The newly revamped, official blog of the Supreme Court of the United States has come out with an overview of where the Affordable Care Act stands at the moment in terms of its constitutionality. This post, aimed at law students, is a useful crash course in constitutional law for the legal lay person or a refresher course for practicing attorneys.

The heart of this issue is whether Congress has the power, by passing the Act, to require uninsured individuals to buy health insurance no later than 2014 or to pay an annual penalty for failing to do so. Congress has implemented this requirement by relying on its constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce. Challenges to the Act focus on the argument that the activity at issue – purchasing health care insurance – does not substantially implicate interstate commerce.

The article addresses further obstacles facing the Supreme Court in deciding this issue. One is whether the Court has jurisdiction to take a case on the topic. Another is whether the plaintiffs challenging the law have standing to bring their action. The Justices will decide this week if they are able review the Act as it was challenged in Thomas More Law Center v. Obama, a case from the Sixth Circuit, which upheld the individual health care insurance mandate. Even if the Justices accept this appeal, a decision may not come down until as late as spring 2013.

As noted in the last post, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) has digitized the process for filing a change of operator agreement in nursing homes. This new service, the Medicaid Information Technology System (MITS), went live on August 2, 2011.

ODJFS is now offering MITS training workshops beginning September 15 for Ohio Medicaid providers. These trainings will cover each claim type: Institutional (UB04), Professional (CMS 1500), AND Dental (ADA 2006). For more information on these webinar trainings, visit: http://jfs.ohio.gov/mits/MITS_Provider_Training_Fall_2011.pdf.

Professional and Institutional providers have the opportunity to attend on-location classroom training for MITS in Columbus. To view the schedule for these sessions and to register, go to: www.hp.com/go/ohioprovider_fall.

If you are not available during any of the offered trainings, here is list of support contacts should you encounter an issue while using MITS: http://jfs.ohio.gov/mits/Supplemental_ReleaseMITS_Contact_EXTERNAL.pdf

The New Jersey Star-Ledger recently ran an article highlighting the important changes in Medicare spurred by the Health Care Reform Act signed into law in March of 2010. These changes are especially important for the baby-boomers, 10,000 of whom become eligible for Medicare daily now.

Federal health care reform has taken aim at correcting Medicare coverage gaps in the purchase of prescription drugs. Now, when  Medicare beneficiaries find themselves in such a dilemma, they are entitled to  a 50% discount on brand-name drugs and a 7% discount on generic drugs. The  Reform Act will increase these discounts gradually until 2020, when the  coverage gaps are scheduled to be eliminated entirely.

Contrary to popular belief, the Reform Act will not  discontinue Medicare Advantage plans. Advantage plans provide coverage in areas  such as vision and hearing for no additional cost. Because Original Medicare plans  do not include coverage in these areas, Advantage plans will continue to serve  a great need for millions of Medicare recipients.

For more information on Medicare, visit www.medicare.gov.

On Thursday, August 18, 2011, the Acting General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board released a report detailing the outcome of cases from the prior year involving employer-employee issues arising from the use of social media outlets and social and general media policies. It is a must-read for all labor/employment practitioners, as well as employers dealing with such issues.

Although the reader will have to determine if the various cases were consistently resolved, they certainly present insight into a rapidly expanding field of labor and employment law.

The pdf report can be found by following this link: NLRB Report on Social Media Cases