Health Care

We counsel health care organizations, vendors and suppliers on all types of transactions and agreements, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, information technology, licenses, financing, employment relationships, management agreements and real estate sales and leases. Our knowledge of health care laws enables us to develop creative strategies to meet your business objectives.  We can also assist in finding ways to grow your organization, including raising capital and securing financing, developing new lines of business and expanding current operations.

We provide counsel on the full spectrum of issues that health care organizations face, including:

• Corporate compliance and compliance program development
• Fraud and abuse counseling and defense
• Overpayment analysis, investigation and reporting
• Licensure, certification and Medicare enrollment
• Provider employment and other provider relationships
• Vendor, facility and other contracts
• Turn-key legal compliance (e.g., template agreements and policies and procedures)
• Internal investigations and corporate compliance
• Medicare and Medicaid survey issues and appeals
• Federal and state investigations and inquiries
• Reimbursement, including repayments and disclosures
• Civil and administrative proceedings, including actions under the False Claims Act or similar state laws (including qui tam actions)

We understand the serious implications of government audits and approach them with a sense of urgency and determination to resolve the issues they present. In situations like these, our decades of experience can make the difference. We respond to and defend organizations in all types of government audits, including Zone Program Integrity Contractor (ZPIC) audits, Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) audits and Medicaid audits. Our attorneys have saved health care institutions millions of dollars.

Our success is rooted in our deep understanding of the unique clinical, legal and operational issues of health care organizations and the interrelationship among all types of health care facilities. We partner with our experienced litigators to assist in appealing government audits.

We advise on fraud and abuse matters, including the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, the Stark Law and the False Claims Act. While developing compliant provider arrangements to submitting self-disclosures and negotiating favorable settlement agreements, we understand the serious implications of these issues and offer you creative solutions. We also help identify ways to improve compliance through contracting policies and procedures and template agreements.

We advise on the full range of HIPAA compliance issues, including handling HIPAA investigations, responding to OCR complaints and investigations, conducting effectiveness reviews, responding to data breaches and other data security incidents, and medical staff and Board of Director training. We have extensive experience negotiating business associate agreements and various health care vendor agreements that involve the handling of health information. Our attorneys also represent vendors and other business associates regarding HIPAA compliance

We represent tax-exempt health care organizations, such as hospitals, hospices, skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies. We can assist you with applications for exempt status, property tax exemption, sales tax exemption and compliance with contracting and compensation requirements. We also partner with our experienced tax and banking teams to serve as bond counsel for many of our health care clients.

We participate in committee discussions and board-level meetings and assist with preparing, revising and filing corporate documents, including articles, bylaws, charters and resolutions.

We counsel clients on medical staff issues, including:

• Preparing and revising medical staff bylaws, rules and regulations, and policies and procedures
• Credentialing practices
• Assessing potential misconduct
• Fair hearings
• Peer review
• Telemedicine issues
• NPDB Reporting
• Reporting to state licensing boards
• Investigations and administrative proceedings by state licensing boards

We understand that time and resource restrictions can be challenging in the face of increased scrutiny and regulation. We offer you the opportunity to have one or more experienced attorneys work on-site for a specified number of days each week. Under this model, we can assist during periods of heavy workload and/or address a specific staffing issue.

We work closely with academic medical centers and understand the legal, regulatory and corporate issues they face. In addition, we assist in clinical research compliance programs, reviewing clinical trial agreements, handling FDA or OHRP audits or reporting, and assisting with human subject protections program policies and procedures.

We collaborate with external industry consultants on a variety of topics, including fair market value opinions, development and implementation of physician compensation programs, and billing and coding audits. Our attorneys are sensitive to privacy and work with outside consultants to take advantage of attorney-client privilege protections. We manage consultants on your behalf, retaining talent to achieve better outcomes.