Faculty Practice Plans

The relationships between a faculty practice plan (FPP), their affiliated academic medical center and medical school are complex, and require the advice of counsel that thoroughly understand their unique legal issues. Their dual clinical and teaching missions also present a wide range of legal needs across areas such as governance, tax, financial structuring, Stark, fraud and abuse, physician and staff compensation and benefits, and reimbursement, among others. Our full-service team provides seamless and efficient service to FPPs, and as appropriate, to their associated academic medical centers and schools.

Transactional

Physician groups operate in a heavily regulated environment. The structuring, operation, and expansion of an FPP often hinge on the stakeholder’s understanding of the costs and benefits of various affiliations and other strategic arrangements. Our dedicated healthcare transactions team regularly counsels clients on their largest and most important transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, affiliations; group purchasing, IT, and other operational contracts; consolidations, and key strategic transactions. We provide our FPP clients with well-informed insights from our work on several first-of-its-kind collaborations involving world-class facilities, roll-ups, and joint ventures of physician practices valued in the hundreds of millions, and sales of healthcare provider groups to private equity investors. Our comprehensive approach ensures that clients know their best options, and are positioned for success.

Regulatory

FPPs and other provider groups face increasing scrutiny by the DOJ, HHS OIG, individual U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and state attorneys general. These authorities seek to enforce a wide range of fraud and abuse laws, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), False Claims Act, the Anti-Kickback Act, the Stark Law, Medicare and Medicaid regulations, as well as other healthcare fraud and criminal statutes. Our consultative approach identifies potential regulatory issues using the investigative techniques of federal and state regulatory investigators. We pinpoint vulnerabilities and offer specific, actionable remediation measures, such as plan and workflow changes, that are indicative of a provider’s intent to operate appropriately.

We also offer a long track record of guiding clients through investigations and prosecutions by state and federal authorities, including the U.S. Attorneys’ offices, state attorneys general (AG), and Congressional oversight committees. Our team combines in-depth knowledge of the regulatory landscape as well as experience handling matters with the AG offices in all 50 states.

Governance

As FPPs are increasingly multi-specialty, leadership must balance various interests and ensure integrated practices are moving toward a collective goal. Our attorneys regularly advise FPP leadership as well as individual executives, boards of directors, and board committee members on a wide range of operational, compensation and employment, fiduciary, tax, regulatory compliance and other issues. We help clients avoid costly operational disruptions, regulatory and law enforcement investigations, and civil and criminal penalties with a holistic approach. We identify issues proactively, and develop effective compliance plans that address each client’s specific organizational structure and complexities.

Tax

We counsel nonprofit, tax-exempt physician groups, healthcare systems, academic medical centers, and other entities on their compliance with the Internal Revenue Code rules and regulations, including intermediate sanctions (excess benefit transactions), conflict of interest, self-dealing, and unrelated business taxable income. We regularly assist clients with a wide variety of transactions, including joint ventures between public universities and private tax-exempt providers. Our work includes obtaining tax exempt status for our clients’ ventures and advising on issues such as reasonable compensation, intermediate sanctions, and unrelated business taxable income. The firm has also advised universities with structuring joint ventures with other entities.

Intellectual Property

We understand the role intellectual assets play in the business of healthcare. From the licensing of technology to protecting a practice’s name and website, we help FPPs with the full range of their IP needs. We assess intellectual property assets, conduct IP due diligence and audits, and negotiate agreements for key transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, vendor, and other agreements. We regularly negotiate agreements between FPPs and academic medical centers, including joint venture agreements involving royalty and joint ownership rights. Our IP healthcare team includes PhDs in diverse technologies who are both exceptionally knowledgeable in their respective technical areas and fully conversant in healthcare law.