Articles by Rob Johnston

About Rob Johnston (3 Articles)

Rob is a third-year law student who served as a Staff Writer for the Campbell Law Observer. Originally from Syracuse, New York, Rob and his family now live in South Carolina. Rob received his Bachelor’s degree in Healthcare Management from Appalachian State University, a Master in Health Administration from the Medical University of South Carolina, and a Master of Jurisprudence in Health Law from the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Before law school, Rob held leadership positions in the healthcare industry, including at a large health system, where he developed the compliance and legal services functions. He also held a regional leadership position with a national home health provider before co-founding a company that developed distribution channels for medical device start-ups. The summer after his 1L year, Rob was a Summer Associate with Nexsen Pruet’s Healthcare Practice in Columbia, South Carolina. He has also externed at the North Carolina Healthcare Association. Rob is interested in healthcare regulatory law and healthcare transactions.

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The New Hospital Price Transparency Rule Is Clouded With Flaws

April 15, 2019

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published a new rule that, as of January 1, 2019, all hospitals are required to “make public a list of their standard charges [for all items and services] via the Internet . . . and to update this information at least annually, or more often as appropriate.” This so-called “Hospital Price Transparency Rule” is a key part of CMS’s priority to create “a patient-centered healthcare system.” The overall goal is to give [...]

Pot & Patents: How the Federal Government has Monopolized Marijuana

March 15, 2019

The growing conflict between America’s drug enforcement policies and the federal government’s control of the marijuana-based pharmaceutical market is laden with contradictions and a healthy dose of bureaucratic hypocrisy. On one side of the conflict is the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), which holds a patent for the development of marijuana-based medicines. The agencies that enforce the federal drug laws are on the other side of the conflict, loudly insisting that [...]

Why does North Carolina’s Certificate of Need Law Matter? It depends who you ask

February 1, 2019

The debate surrounding North Carolina’s Certificate of Need (“CON”) Law is not new, nor has a clear winner ever been declared. That may be about to change. A 2018 lawsuit filed by a Winston Salem surgeon will potentially set the stage for courts to declare a winner. North Carolina’s CON law requires healthcare providers to obtain approval from the state (a CON) prior to expanding their facilities or purchasing certain types of equipment. Dr. Gajendra Singh, the surgeon behind [...]