Healthcare

    •  
Like our clients, we welcome innovation in healthcare and the challenges it brings.

Overview

Our healthcare clients look to us for counsel as they explore new opportunities and navigate legal and operational challenges. They trust us to find solutions that are practical, effective, and efficient. This is our commitment to our clients. Our mutual rewards are long-term, loyal relationships that strengthen our clients and improve our service.

Experience + Engagement = Efficiency
We deliver exceptional legal services to leading providers of healthcare services and technology. Our depth of experience allows us to answer questions practically and quickly. We take our knowledge of the healthcare industry and focus on our client's culture, objectives, and concerns to develop feasible, actionable options. You will receive what you need when you need it. We strive to make working with Davis Wright Tremaine easy and enjoyable by prioritizing service and understanding our clients' needs.

Integrated Expertise
Our lawyers are organized in teams designed to address client needs efficiently. Groups like our healthcare M&A team and our healthcare litigation and investigations practice include lawyers dedicated to a team approach. These teams anticipate and deliver what is needed, reducing the client's burden and ensuring the right issues are addressed by lawyers with the right expertise. Our teams are both experienced in healthcare and knowledgeable in relevant areas of law, including healthcare compliance, technology, M&A, tax, tax exemption, labor and employment, antitrust, litigation, real estate, and finance.

Our Services

Antitrust

Our antitrust team has the experience and industry expertise to advise healthcare clients on any antitrust issue. We counsel, litigate, and represent clients before government antitrust authorities. We pride ourselves on tackling complex antitrust issues by finding creative and practical solutions to fulfill client's business objectives. Our team has extensive healthcare industry knowledge, and we offer clients a deep bench of industry experts. We routinely advise on mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, competitor collaborations, medical staff privileges, provider networks, and contracting practices with payors, vendors, physicians, and staff.
DWT's clients are on the cutting edge of digital health and healthcare technology, and we are proud to counsel them through the rapidly evolving landscape of legal and regulatory issues that they face daily. The attorneys on the telemedicine, health information technology, and digital health teams work extensively with healthcare technology companies, hospitals, practice groups, and others on matters including regulatory compliance, mergers & acquisitions, acquisitions of electronic health record (EHR) systems for hospitals, software licensing and support service offerings, and private label, custom e-commerce services. Our telehealth expertise encompasses credentialing, online prescribing, privacy and security, social networking, user-generated content, website privacy policies, and terms of use.
When it comes to the delivery of innovative legal services, few firms match the collaborative success of our Employment Services and Health Law groups. Our robust team of labor and employment attorneys has handled hundreds of matters for healthcare clients, including employment litigation (single and multiple plaintiff), physician lawsuits and arbitrations, and pre-litigation demand letters. We train supervisors and employees in best practices for handling workplace harassment and discrimination; represent them in proceedings before federal and state administrative agencies; and provide counsel on a range of personnel issues, including privacy matters, employment agreements, wage and hour matters, and workplace technology. We have one of the largest traditional labor practices for healthcare on the West Coast. From defending major healthcare systems in ULP charges and labor arbitrations to negotiating collective bargaining agreements with various unions, we have a lengthy history of successful representation. Many clients rely on our attorneys to advise on overall labor strategy and provide boots-on-the-ground support whenever needed.
DWT's interdisciplinary healthcare compliance team has deep expertise in state and federal fraud and abuse regulations, physician self-referral laws, the full range of government and commercial healthcare benefit programs, healthcare governance, licensure, accreditation, and certificate of need. We help our clients navigate the healthcare regulatory maze and assist them in making voluntary disclosures, fulfilling reporting requirements, and responding to government investigations and audits. DWT regularly assists in the assessment of clients' compliance programs and the development of work plans and related investigations. We also have considerable experience defending False Claims Act lawsuits and responding to other government enforcement actions.
DWT's healthcare regulatory attorneys have extensive experience helping providers and suppliers meet their business objectives through the provision of practical, real-world advice and solutions. We routinely help clients navigate the licensing, certification, program participation, and accreditation implications of the transactions, reorganizations, and other business opportunities they explore. Our attorneys help clients address and respond to licensure and certification complaints, surveys, and adverse events and support them in their efforts to develop plans of correction and implement process improvements. Our knowledge of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement systems, including the enrollment, certification, and accreditation processes used by government reimbursement programs, also enables us to advise clients on the reimbursement implications of a variety of transactions and operational changes. We also regularly advise clients on compliance with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), including by drafting and updating required EMTALA policies, procedures, and forms; educating practitioners and administrators on EMTALA's complex mandates; advising during EMTALA incidents and complaint surveys; and assisting with plans of correction and follow-up enforcement communications.
Our approach is unique because our healthcare M&A lawyers are skilled in both M&A transactions and in health law. We provide our clients with a one-stop shop: comprehensive services to help successfully plan, negotiate, and implement healthcare affiliations, strategic alliances, joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions, and sales.
Our white collar investigations and government controversies lawyers work in concert with our leading healthcare practitioners to represent healthcare executives, professionals, and private and public entities in fraud investigations (internal and government-initiated) and enforcement actions related to government healthcare program billing. Our practitioners have decades of experience litigating healthcare fraud and similar controversies in federal and state courts, as well as before administrative tribunals including state licensing agencies.
DWT represents diagnostic laboratory clients throughout the U.S., including legacy, emerging, and start-up lab companies and health systems that own and operate diagnostic laboratories delivering clinical, molecular (generic), toxicology, and anatomical pathology testing in regional and national markets. We also represent commercial lab management firms and lab billing companies with services including compliance, fraud and abuse, and M&A.
DWT represents a wide range of healthcare providers in all aspects of managed care relationships between providers and healthcare payers, including commercial and government payers. Our attorneys work extensively with our clients on structuring and negotiating all different types of managed care arrangements, including fee-for-service, shared risk, full and partial capitation, and other value-based arrangements. Our attorneys also work with revenue cycle teams to develop best practices for seeking and obtaining payment from managed care payers and patients, including development of policies for best practices for provider appeals, coding compliance, charging practices, overpayments, charity care, and vendor management. When disputes arise between providers and payers, our attorneys have extensive experience litigating complex and high-volume managed care disputes. DTW managed care litigation experience includes resolving reimbursement disputes with major health plans that involve improper denials, authorization, billing and coding requirements, and medical necessity of services. This expertise includes disputes that involve ERISA plans, out-of-state payers, and leased networks. Our attorneys have collected hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of providers and defended claims for overpayments.
Our practice is a nationally recognized authority on medical staff relations, peer review, and governance. For decades, we have coordinated the internal activities of medical staffs and have mediated communications with both individual physicians and hospital leadership. We find ways to foster healthy hospital-staff relationships and implement needed changes efficiently and with comprehensive attention to legal compliance. When disputes arise, we work hard to find creative, appropriate, and compliant resolutions before peer review proceedings or litigation are required. If necessary, we are fully prepared to defend our clients in administrative hearings or litigation. Our attorneys also draft and revise medical staff bylaws, rules, and policies for compliance with legal and accreditation standards, and we are experienced in data bank and medical board reporting, physician and staff education, physician on-call requirements, and medical staff integration in multi-hospital health systems.

The attorneys who support our reimbursement practice have familiarized themselves for decades with the operational goals of and challenges faced by large health systems, academic medical practices, behavioral health organizations, and other healthcare providers. We help our clients interpret and understand statutes, regulations, and other policies governing reimbursement under Medicare, Medicaid, military payment programs, and local government payment programs, allowing them to maximize payment opportunities and avoid problems that may arise from non-compliance with reimbursement rules. Our Medicare appeals experience extends to cost report payment disputes, coverage disputes, provider status disputes, and civil money penalty disputes from administrative-level appeals through to judicial review, both at the trial court and appellate levels. We represent clients in commercial third-party payor arrangements, assisting in contract negotiations, resolving disputes, and advising on compliance and accreditation programs. We are also well versed on the No Surprises Act and have counseled many clients on the new and evolving obligations arising under the act.

DWT's nationally recognized health information privacy and security team has helped clients optimize their use of health information while guarding against breaches and legal risks. We are authorities on the ever-changing state and federal regulations surrounding the use, exchange, and protection of health information, including requirements under HIPAA, and also the HITECH Act. We counsel on breach detection and response, business associate contracts, information privacy and security policies, safeguards, and best practices for managing health data.

Our Foundations & Nonprofits group works closely with our healthcare attorneys to provide coordinated, integrated advice on the issues that face today's nonprofit healthcare organizations. We advise on federal and state tax exemption, mergers and acquisitions, tax-exempt bond financings, joint ventures, for-profit/nonprofit structures, unrelated business income tax, nonprofit governance, and executive compensation. Our attorneys counsel nonprofit hospitals on Section 501(r) compliance and represent nonprofit healthcare and medical research organizations in IRS examinations and challenges to tax exemption.

Our Approach to Client Service
Healthcare partner Bob Homchick explains how DWT’s breadth of experience and deep industry insight help clients achieve goals and avoid surprises.

Contact Us

We're here to help. Email us with any questions or comments and we'll get you connected to the right person.