We serve as trusted counselors and skilled advocates for the wide array of health organizations that make up the health care system, including:
- Hospitals & Health Care Systems
- Physicians & Physician Practice Groups
- Pharmacists & Pharmacies
- Dentists & Dental Practice Groups
- Ambulatory Surgery Centers
- Diagnostic Imaging Centers
- Mental Health Practices
- Mental Health Providers
- Medical Spas
- Medical Device Manufacturers
- Assisted Living, Nursing and Senior Facilities
- Direct Primary Care providers
- Acupuncture and Alternative Medicine
- Physical and Occupational Therapy Practices
- Substance Abuse Treatment Centers
- Healthcare Professional Societies & Trade Groups
- Concierge Medicine
In the rapidly evolving, complex, and highly regulated world of health care delivery, the skilled team at Sulloway & Hollis works tirelessly with each client to provide innovative, cost-effective solutions to complex legal issues.
Whether the work involves the defense of catastrophic injury claims, advising on strategies for managing risk, implementing quality assurance programs, or drafting tort reform legislation, our team’s experience and insight to each, make Sulloway & Hollis the partner of choice for our healthcare clients.
Our multi-disciplinary practice helps clients facing a wide array of legal challenges, including:
Administrative and Regulatory Compliance
Our health care team helps clients understand their state and federal compliance requirements and obligations and works with them to create standard operating procedures that remain compliant with changing regulations.
Every health care organization or provider has a guiding set of legal, ethical, and professional standards that it must adhere to. We assist clients in the development of policies and procedures that define compliant conduct and create a process that continually monitors and trains to the standards.
Our team has extensive experience and expertise representing clients in administrative and regulatory compliance matters. We regularly assist hospitals and healthcare clients with:
- Licensing and Regulatory Matters
- Certification and Accreditation
- Physician and Medical Staff Relationships
- Board Responsibilities & Board Policies
- Tax-Exempt Status Matters
- Employee Benefits Issues
- HIPAA & Medical Records Issues
- Labor and Employment Issues
- Medicare/Medicaid Fraud and Abuse
- Physician Self-Referral Matters
- Health Plan Contracting
- Physician Employment
- Antitrust Issues
We draft policies and procedures and conduct compliance training related to HIPAA Privacy, Security, Code Sets Rules, and related state law requirements. When breaches occur, we advise clients on complying with federal and state notification requirements and responding to government investigations, subpoenas and law enforcement requests for documents containing protected health information.
Data Privacy/HIPAA Counseling
Our team counsels health care providers on how to remain compliant with HIPAA and other federal and state privacy laws. Since the passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996, the security of patient health and personal information has been of paramount importance. Given the rapid pace of change in health information technology in recent years, keeping up with effective policies and procedures is a time-consuming, complex issue.
If your organization is regulated by HIPAA, you will want informed legal counsel to advise you on the challenges of HIPAA compliance. We work with our clients to develop policies and procedures to avoid violating applicable privacy and data security laws.
Our health care team stands with our clients to protect their interests and offers a range of services to assist them in complying with HIPAA, as well as comparable state medical privacy and security laws, including:
- Organizational approaches to comply with HIPAA’s privacy, security and electronic data interchange rules.
- Advising on structuring new business models and transactional relationships to comply with HIPAA, and HIPAA-related due diligence, in connection with corporate transactions.
- Developing HIPAA compliance programs and strategies.
- HIPAA counseling, including risk-management and litigation strategies.
- Onsite education.
- HIPAA Compliance Assessment.
- Regulatory advice.
The health care team at Sulloway & Hollis can help develop procedures and policies on transactional, regulatory, and operational matters.
Fraud & Abuse Counseling
The health care industry operates in an environment with intense regulatory oversight and ongoing scrutiny related to fraud and abuse.
Our healthcare team provides timely, accurate, and practical advice on structuring business arrangements that comply with state and federal fraud and abuse laws. This includes advising on the Stark Physician Self-Referral Statute (Stark Law), Anti-Kickback laws, and False Claims Act investigations.
With every aspect of the health care delivery process so closely scrutinized for fraud and abuse, even a simple error can trigger serious enforcement actions. Hospitals, physicians, and many other providers of healthcare services turn to our team to help them mitigate compliance risks and defend them in government investigations under the health care fraud and abuse laws.
Sulloway & Hollis provides health care clients with fraud and abuse counsel for matters involving:
- Federal and State Anti-kickback Laws and Regulations.
- Federal and State Self-Referral Prohibitions (Stark Law.)
- False Claims Act.
Risk Management/Compliance Services
Our health care team provides strategic and innovative counseling on health care risk management and compliance services to a variety of clients. The multidisciplinary group works with clients to address the wide range of legal and operational issues that must be considered in identifying, managing, minimizing, and/or avoiding adverse legal risks.
Risk and uncertainty are inevitable in health care organizations. Human nature, the provision of intricate and multifaceted care, and the highly complex system guarantee that health care entities will face adverse circumstances. But these occurrences can be mitigated with good risk management planning.
Our group focuses on best practices to reduce the risk of policy, regulatory or legal violations, as well as best practices to address potential and or actual violations.
Comprehensive risk management and compliance services for healthcare providers and facilities include:
- Conducting risk assessments in order to identify areas of need and the strategies that can be used to address them.
- Developing custom-tailored risk mitigation and compliance programs that address providers’ and facilities’ unique risks in a practical and cost-effective manner.
- Assisting with training and implementation in order to ensure that providers’ and facilities’ risk management and compliance programs are maximally effective.
- Conducting periodic audits to assess new risks and conducting targeted internal investigations when risks or compliance concerns arise.
- Drafting and negotiating contracts with contractors, employees, other providers and facilities, and third-party vendors.
- Advising providers and facilities regarding federal law enforcement risks and providing legal representation for federal audits and investigations.
