|
Services Available
Carlton Fields lawyers have kept pace with and anticipated these changes, keeping our clients both compliant and competitive. The Health Care Practice Group at Carlton Fields is comprised of a broad-based team of experienced health law attorneys who assist our health care clients in a wide variety of areas. Attorneys who practice in this group are actively involved in representing virtually every type of health care industry with their compliance, regulatory, and litigation needs. We cover the entire health care field including providers, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, practice groups, physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, health insurance companies, major universities, and medical associations.
Specifically, our health care lawyers have extensive experience in the following areas:
- Appellate Issues Specific to Health Care
- Accreditation
- Administrative Proceedings
- Anti-kickback laws
- Certificate of Need
- Compliance Programs
- Employment
- EMTALA
- ERISA
- False Claims Act
- Fraud and Abuse
- Health Insurance
- HIPAA
- Lobbying/Legislation
- Managed Care
- Medical Malpractice
- Medical Staff/Peer Review Issues
- Merger and Acquisitions
- Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices
- Stark laws
- State Licensing and Disciplinary Proceedings
- State Regulatory Proceedings
Administrative Law, Legislation and Lobbying
The firm's government affairs and lobbying team vigorously advocates on behalf of its health care providers, health care associations, health insurers and managed care companies before the Florida Legislature, Cabinet and executive agencies, including the Office of Insurance Regulation, the Florida Attorney General's office, the Florida Department of Health (DOH) and the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). In addition, the firm's attorneys can represent your interests in any administrative proceeding before these same governmental entities.
Appellate Practice
Our Health Care Practice Group includes board-certified appellate specialists who have extensive experience in handling appeals on health care issues, ranging from issues of credentialing and peer review of staff privileges decisions to hospitalists issues to a wide variety of medical malpractice, hospital and nursing home issues. Our appellate attorneys include former law clerks from numerous federal and state appellate courts as well as a former Chief Judge of Florida 's Second District Court of Appeal and a former Solicitor General of Florida.
Our experience shows that appeals are most successful when they are anticipated. Accordingly, our appellate attorneys are available to assist trial counsel in presenting and preserving potential appellate issues at the trial or administrative level, and then, if necessary, to pursue those issues on appeal or defend the successful results obtained below. Our appellate lawyers can also help frame the record to make an argument that the law on a particular issue should be changed. They likewise can prepare focused amicus curiae briefs in cases presenting important issues for health care providers.
Employment Issues for Health Care Entities
We have extensive experience in the representation of health care employers. Our attorneys' in-depth knowledge of general employment laws and, particularly, the employment laws' application to health care facilities allows us to assist health care employers in all aspects of employment, human resources, and labor relations. We represent employers in any employment or labor disputes in federal and state courts as well as in administrative hearings, including employee or physician disciplinary issues, grievances, and the hiring or firing of employees. Additionally, we provide preventative advice, prepare appropriate policies and procedures, assist in the resolution of benefit issues, and negotiate employment contracts or physician associations.
Health Care Compliance
We advise providers on important elements of an effective health care compliance program in order to respond to guidelines preferred by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General and other governmental agencies. First and foremost, an effective compliance program provides safeguards to ensure that providers are complying with applicable federal and state regulations. In addition, a successful compliance program improves the quality of patient care, creates a centralized location for important information, demonstrates the organization's commitment to legal and ethical conduct, establishes procedures for reporting and investigation of improper conduct and reduces the provider's exposure to legal sanctions. Specifically, on Medicare and Medicaid issues, we handle reimbursement disputes with federal and state agencies. Our firm also addresses various compliance issues relating to EMTALA, HIPAA, Stark, and anti-kickback laws.
Health Care Fraud and Abuse
We have a broad range of experience defending companies and individuals against fraud and abuse claims on both the federal and state levels. Our lawyers have substantial trial experience and defend as well counsel companies, physician groups, hospitals, and other health care providers in health care fraud cases. We have defended our clients against all types of fraud and abuse allegations, including claims pertaining to Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare (the U.S. Department of Defense's Military Health Care System) and Champus (the health care program that covers medical necessities). We have attorneys who have previously served as federal prosecutors, state prosecutors, and as counsel for the Florida Department of Health, who bring to our firm invaluable knowledge of fraud and abuse regulations.
Health Facility Representation
Carlton Fields has over a century of experience in representing a number of hospitals and hospital systems, nursing homes, hospice organizations, home health agencies, pharmacies and professional providers. Our clients are both not-for-profit and for-profit, and include public hospital authorities, teaching hospitals, children's hospitals, home health agency chains, physicians and physician groups, and other licensed health care professionals. We represent health care facilities in interpreting state and federal reimbursement statutes and regulations, investigations of health care facilities, accreditation issues, corrective action plans, contract procurements, and rule challenges. We also represent hospitals in medical staff issues, including peer review investigations and in preparing professional service and employment agreements with physicians.
We are experienced in representing clients before Florida 's Agency of Health Care Administration (AHCA) on matters relating to licensure and certificates of need for medical facilities. We have worked with AHCA attorneys and staff to resolve issues in a manner favorable to our clients in both the judicial and administrative forums.
Health Insurance and Managed Care
Carlton Fields' representation of health insurance and managed care company interests gives those clients access to a comprehensive array of quality advocacy services within the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of Florida government. Attorneys and government consultants in the Health Care Practice Group have extensive knowledge of health care insurance and managed care regulation, reimbursements, political advocacy, and the health care delivery system as a whole.
The firm's government affairs and lobbying team vigorously advocates health insurance and managed care issues on behalf of its clients before the Florida Legislature, Cabinet and executive agencies, including the Office of Insurance Regulation, and the firm is an active member of the Florida Managed Care Coalition.
The scope of Carlton Fields' health insurance and managed care regulatory representation includes licensure, coverage matters, subscriber assistance claims, bad faith, and litigation. Other areas where the firm has depth includes:
- Rate-making, including administrative rate proceedings, judicial proceedings, and rate arbitration
- Form and product filing approvals
- Statutory accounting, admitted asset, diversification and solvency issues
- Insurance taxation, including premium tax, corporate income tax, retaliatory tax, and special purpose assessments
- Administrative rule challenge proceedings
- Market conduct investigations and cases
- Solvency and receivership actions against regulated entities
- Ongoing compliance issues
Health Professional Regulation
We handle licensure and disciplinary issues before all the health practitioner professional boards in Florida and the Florida Department of Health. We are prepared to represent your interests before any one of the boards to obtain a professional license in Florida. In the event of professional disciplinary investigations, we can represent your interests, and if formal charges are filed against you, we will aggressively defend your case in order to eliminate or minimize any action taken against your professional license. Our attorneys have handled state-wide investigations and litigation of complex medical regulatory cases, including emergency suspension and restrictions of licenses. Our attorneys are knowledgeable in a variety of health care issues, including medical errors, practitioner profiling, internet medicine and prescribing, peer review, coding, physician impairment, sexual misconduct, and numerous patient care issues in most medical specialties. Our firm also assists individual health professionals with health compliance issues in an effort to resolve issues before the state agencies get involved. We can also appear before the boards to address proposed rules that may affect your practice.
Medical Malpractice
Our vast medical malpractice experience includes acute care hospitals, physicians in every specialty, nurses, respiratory therapists, nursing homes and pharmacists. We represent several pharmaceutical houses, HMO's, medical universities and clinics. We have been instrumental in establishing favorable case law for health care providers. Moreover, our attorneys routinely respond to notices of investigation issued under the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), representing licensed health care professionals in the ensuing administrative process.
Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Industry
We have extensive knowledge and experience in litigating pharmaceutical and medical device cases for our national and international clients. We have defended a diverse group of manufacturers and sellers with respect to a wide variety of products in jurisdictions throughout the state of Florida.
Through our representation of numerous industry leaders, we understand their business environment, and efficiently and effectively represent their interests. Carlton Fields has been a leader in developing the law in Florida on such key issues as the learned intermediary doctrine, preemption, market share and the statute of limitations. On the cutting edge, and with more than 30 years of experience working with the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, our lawyers take pride in our client focused strategies.
|