Healthcare Providers

Multidisciplinary Healthcare Experience

Healthcare providers seek our guidance as trusted advisers in helping to transform the healthcare industry. Relevant experience from our cross-disciplinary, industry-focused team includes:

• Healthcare regulatory and compliance counseling: We help companies navigate their most complex healthcare questions related to fraud and abuse, self-referral, coverage and reimbursement, privacy, corporate practice of medicine, licensing and certification, joint venture and leasing arrangements, and other issues implicating the full range of federal and state healthcare laws and regulations. We also assist our clients in developing pragmatic compliance programs to address their most difficult challenges. We do this work across all segments of the healthcare industry, with provider work as a centerpiece of our practice.
  
  Our team includes a physician, a former Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA) with experience in provider coding and billing departments, and numerous other healthcare lawyers with substantial clinical backgrounds. Collectively, we are exceptionally adept at analyzing issues related to the provision of quality care, coding and billing, and other clinical issues.
  
  Representative matters for healthcare providers can be found here.

• Healthcare enforcement defense: Our team has represented healthcare providers in dozens of qui tam cases under the federal False Claims Act and its state-level counterparts (FCAs). We have dealt with virtually every legal issue that can arise: constitutional, jurisdictional, pleadings, and the full array of substantive issues in engagement with the Department of Justice and other enforcement agencies and in district courts in every circuit.
  
  Our healthcare lawyers who handle government investigations of providers offer a unique combination of enforcement experience and substantive knowledge of the regulatory and contractual requirements inherent in the provision and reimbursement of healthcare services. We handle major enforcement actions involving allegations of billing improprieties, including “upcoding” and billing for medically unnecessary services, Medicare Advantage coding issues, kickbacks, self-referral violations, quality of care issues, and other alleged regulatory violations.
  
  We leverage the knowledge of colleagues from across multiple legal disciplines, including those in our White Collar: Government Litigation and Investigations practice, many of whom have extensive healthcare experience. Our team includes former federal government officials, a former Acting Attorney General (and head of the Civil Division), a former Deputy Attorney General, two former U.S. Attorneys, and numerous former Assistant U.S. Attorneys.
  
  Representative matters for healthcare providers can be found here.

• Healthcare litigation: Where matters cannot be resolved before trial, we bring to bear our formidable litigation skills. Sidley’s Healthcare lawyers are actively involved in a wide array of complex civil litigation. The suits we handle range from disputes with a single governmental agency to nationwide multidistrict class actions. We represent clients through all stages of the litigation process, from pre-trial investigation through trial to appeals before state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court. Sidley litigators are zealous and creative advocates, and our healthcare litigation team brings a distinct advantage to any complex litigation matter involving healthcare regulatory issues.

• M&A and Private Equity: Our healthcare transactional team is unique among international law firms because we combine our transactional strength with our in-depth technical and scientific experience in the healthcare industry. We are practical advisers who not only identify problems but help our clients find solutions.
  
  Throughout the diligence process of a transactional matter, we draw upon the knowledge of the firm’s healthcare lawyers with experience in fraud and abuse, reimbursement, privacy, antitrust/competition, government contracts, export control, and product liability. We conduct regulatory due diligence and assist our clients in assessing and mitigating risk. Our team closely monitors regulatory changes and assists clients in preparing comments to new regulations and government policies, and developing and implementing internal policies and procedures.

• Technology and Life Sciences Transactions: Our Technology and Life Sciences Transactions practice represents many leading technology companies, ranging from groundbreaking startups to global Fortune 500 corporations. Ours is a sophisticated practice in which our lawyers handle the complex technology issues confronting clients who are expanding the scope of their businesses and product offerings into new areas, such as telemedicine and telehealth, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, autonomous vehicles, and the Internet of Things.

• Privacy and Cybersecurity: Our team provides the rare capability where lawyers from both the healthcare and privacy sectors intersect. We have assisted numerous multinational companies in developing and implementing global data protection programs. We provide comprehensive cybersecurity overviews and develop incident response playbooks to work with various departments to ensure that breach response and crisis management plans include the right people, prioritize the protection of sensitive data, and address all reasonably foreseeable contingencies. We provide counseling on all U.S. federal and state privacy laws including HIPAA, GINA, and the CCPA, as well as privacy laws outside the U.S. including GDPR.

• Government Strategies: Leading healthcare organizations often turn to Sidley for assistance with resolving the many government, policy, and political challenges inherent in conducting business within a fast-changing global landscape. We closely monitor all healthcare legislation and regulatory matters at the federal level in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and regularly weigh in with key policymakers to advocate positions on behalf of clients.
  
  Over the years, Sidley has represented hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, large trade associations, physician organizations, and other issue-specific coalitions on significant matters pending in Congress or in the executive branch. Our team members are highly regarded within their substantive fields and are called upon frequently by clients to make presentations before HHS, CMS, FDA, key committees, staff, members of Congress, MedPAC, the House, and Senate leadership and state legislatures.
  
  Our team comprises professionals who are intimately familiar with how policy is made, based on experience in senior-level positions in the executive branch, Congress, regulatory and administrative agencies, and private industry.