Practice Areas & Industries: Holme Roberts & Owen LLP

Practice/Industry Group Overview

HRO’s interdisciplinary Health Care Practice Group serves clients from all sectors of the nation’s health care industry through our domestic offices in Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and San Francisco. In addition, lawyers in the Health Care Practice Group regularly work with HRO lawyers in other practice groups, including, for example, tax, corporate and securities, litigation, tax-exempt finance, antitrust, labor and employment, ERISA and welfare benefits, intellectual property, bankruptcy, environmental and real estate.

Services Available

HRO’s Health Care Practice Group offers cost-effective and responsive legal services, with a national perspective. We are proud of the ability of our lawyers to develop innovative, practical solutions to complex legal problems, sharing ideas and information to further the business goals of our clients. HRO's substantial investment in and use of information management technology facilitates the regular exchange of ideas and shared experiences among our lawyers.

HRO attorneys advise health care systems; tertiary, community, and specialty hospitals; managed care organizations; pharmacies and pharmacists; freestanding diagnostic and treatment facilities; private physician groups; behavioral health providers; nursing and assisted living facilities; and a variety of other ventures and entities in the health care industry, including participants in tax-exempt bond financings. The breadth of our experience fosters understanding of health care-related matters from different perspectives, and enhances our ability to represent most sectors in the health care industry.

Capabilities and Experience

The following highlights represent the experience of the attorneys in HRO's Health Care Practice Group.

Regulatory and Governmental Compliance
We advise providers, suppliers, and payors on regulatory and governmental compliance, and also respond to allegations of failure to comply with those rules and regulations. Our attorneys provide counsel on compliance plans, corporate integrity agreements, and voluntary adoption of “best practices” for governance, including those identified under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. HRO lawyers advise on federal and state fraud, anti-kickback, anti-referral, Stark and related “safe harbors”, and work with our clients to develop creative approaches to accomplishing their legitimate business objectives. In addition, we address issues arising under government assistance programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.

Business and Operational Issues
We assist clients in addressing day-to-day business and operational issues, including business combinations, corporate restructuring, affiliations, financing and compensation, and practice management.

Medicare and Medicaid Appeals
We counsel health care clients on a wide range of issues related to the Medicare and Medicaid payment programs, including extensive work on ways to lawfully maximize reimbursement in various situations (such as joint ventures and corporate restructurings).  We represent our clients in administrative hearings before the PRRB and in judicial appeals in the federal courts. HRO has dealt with certification, conditions of participation, coverage, reassignment and other government reimbursement issues for government certified providers.

Representation Before Administrative and Regulatory Agencies
We represent clients before Federal and state administrative and regulatory agencies, including proceedings that involve rule challenges, certificates of need and other regulatory proceedings.

Medical Staff
HRO Health Care attorneys work with hospitals to draft medical staff bylaws and fair hearing manuals and counsel hospitals, as well as individual health professionals, on various questions arising in connection with disciplinary activities (including summary and automatic suspension hearings); revocation of clinical or admitting privileges; medical staff membership issues (including questions involving closed medical staffs); and the role of allied health professionals.

Managed Care
HRO’s Health Care Practice Group provides a full range of services related to managed care arrangements including all aspects of HMO and PPO development, acquisition and sale, managed care joint ventures, independent practice associations (IPAs) and physician-hospital organizations (PHOs). HRO's services include consideration of appropriate structures and business forms, contracts with providers and payors, contracts with Medicare and Medicaid, fraud and abuse, reimbursement issues, and matters before various state Departments of Health, Insurance and Managed Health Care.

Tax-Exempt Organizations

HRO has extensive experience handling a broad range of tax matters for health care organizations and related charitable and other not-for-profit organizations, at the federal, state and local levels. This experience includes work on issues related to obtaining and maintaining tax-exempt status; tax-exempt financings; private inurement; unrelated business tax issues; use of for-profit subsidiaries; reorganizations; addressing Intermediate Sanctions; and publicly supported organization/private foundation issues. In addition to counseling, our tax lawyers have represented various clients in connection with litigation of tax matters – including appeals of adverse tax determinations.

Finance

HRO works to obtain appropriate financing for our health care clients’ endeavors.  We coordinate tax-exempt bond financings, secured and unsecured loans from financial institutions, private offerings of securities and membership interests and registered offerings of securities.  We serve as borrowers’ counsel, bond counsel, and underwriters’ counsel in connection with numerous hospital, and other eleemosynary financings.  We restructure financing arrangements when necessary to reduce cost, increase capital available or modify financing arrangements to permit the client to achieve its legitimate business objectives.

Provider Operations
Our attorneys provide assistance on matters involving licensure, accreditation, certification, credentialing, physician recruitment, peer review, emergency patient transfer, confidentiality and privacy, information security, medical treatment consent, clinical trials, and bioethics.

Legal Staff
The Health Care Practice Group is coordinated by Steve Nash, who is located in the Denver office and can be reached at (303) 866-0659 or at Steve.Nash@HRO.com.

In addition to the firm’s own experience in health care matters, HRO has an affiliation arrangement with The Law Offices of Suzanne van Hall P.C., Evergreen, Colorado. Ms. van Hall is a distinguished attorney in the health care field and former president of the California Health Lawyers Association.

Clients:
Arapahoe House , Colorado Health Care Purchasing Alliance , Colorado Springs Health Partners, P.C. , Colorado Springs Internal Medicine LLP , Colorado Springs Neurological Associates, P.C. , Denver Health and Hospital Authority , HealthONE , Lakewood Orthopaedic Clinic, P.C., Mental Health Corporation of Denver, Bethesda Living Center , Parkview Hospital , Sheridan Memorial Hospital , Valley View Hospital Association