Our Health Care Group understands the medicine behind the matters. We work with our clients to create a team of professionals to match their needs. We are dedicated to partnering with our clients in order to provide access and ease of communication. The Health Care Group draws on the resources of our employee benefits, intellectual property, labor, tax, corporate, and trial practice groups to address specific client issues.

We bring unparalleled commitment and depth of experience to our representation of health care clients in transactional, compliance, and advocacy matters.

Our attorneys regularly counsel and represent the following types of organizations on health care matters:

• Hospitals and health systems
• Physicians and physician practices
• Long term and post-acute care facilities
• Nursing homes and assisted living facilities
• Health information technology companies
• Dialysis providers
• Ambulance suppliers (ground and air)
• Pharmacies
• Group purchasing organizations
• DME providers
• Health & wellness entrepreneurs
• Pharmaceutical and device manufacturers
• Private equity and investors
• Underwriters and excess carriers
• Group health plans
• Public and private retirement systems
• Industry and professional associations
• Product developers and importers

Areas of Emphasis

• Bioethics
• Billing, coding & payor disputes
• Contracts
• Corporate and transactional matters
• Corporate governance
• Coverage and reimbursement
• Credentialing and peer review
• Employee benefits
• Employment and labor law
• EMTALA
• Fiduciary and board issues
• Food and Drug Administration
• Fraud and abuse compliance
• Group health plan compliance issues
• Health care legislation and advocacy
• Health information technology
• HIPAA compliance and health information and security
• Intellectual property
• Internal investigations
• Licensing and certification
• Litigation and dispute resolution
• Managed care arrangements
• Medical staff and peer review
• Mergers, sales, acquisitions, and reorganizations
• Patient consent
• Pharmacy benefit management contracts
• Physician organizations
• Private equity financings
• Public health law
• Real estate
• Regulatory compliance
• Tax and tax-exempt issues
• Tax-exempt bond financing
• Telemedicine

Representative Services

Regulatory & Health Care Operations

Our health care lawyers bring their in-house experience to counsel clients with respect to a full range of health care regulatory and operational matters. Having worked in the health care setting, we understand the practicalities and necessity of providing innovative and patient focused services that achieve operational objectives and comply with regulatory mandates at the state and federal levels. We guide clients in matters of corporate governance, bond financings, licensing, accreditation, investigatory, and enforcement actions. We review clients’ business practices and operations to ensure compliance with reimbursement rules, licensing requirements, Stark Laws, the Anti-Kickback Statute, False Claims Act, and state equivalents.

Financings

Our attorneys have served as bond counsel and borrower’s counsel for a variety of tax-exempt financings for health care institutions, including bond issues for hospitals and health systems, assisted living and skilled nursing facilities, and hospice facilities. In addition to serving as counsel with respect to tax-exempt debt, our attorneys provide hospital systems and long-term care providers’ assistance with other types of financing transactions, including structuring and implementing revolving credit and equipment leasing programs and assisting with the structuring and oversight of debt management programs to maximize the effectiveness of swaps and other interest rate hedges.

Our lawyers have structured and implemented a number of significant financings for hospital systems and other health care providers. These transactions included:

• New money combined with both current and advance refundings of existing debt
• A combination of fixed rate uninsured bonds and insured auction rate bonds
• Related swaps including integrated forward fixed payor swaps and a “rate lock” swap

HIPAA Compliance

Our attorneys have assisted a wide range of clients, from nationally known institutions to small physician offices, with all matters related to compliance with the HIPAA privacy and security rules. Our services include assessment of privacy procedures and potential risks, drafting and/or review of privacy policies and procedures, review of Business Associate Agreements, and ongoing advice as to HIPAA compliance. We have helped clients respond to breach events and have successfully resolved numerous enforcement actions with the HHS Office for Civil Rights.

Group Health Plan Contracting

Our lawyers serve as outside counsel to several public employment retirement systems with respect to their self-insured and insured health plans. We counsel these plans as to contracting with providers, ASO and PBM agreements, HIPAA, and Medicare Part D issues, such as participation in the retiree drug subsidy program.