Practice Areas & Industries: Jennings, Strouss & Salmon, P.L.C.

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Jennings Strouss provides legal services to a wide variety of health care companies and industry organizations, including hospitals, providers, physicians and physician groups, medical research organizations, medical device manufacturers, health maintenance organizations, hospices, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities, as well as life science companies, software developers, and professional consultants specializing in the health care field.

Our health law attorneys represent clients in matters affecting the commercial viability of the health care industry, including commercial transactions, regulatory matters, medical staff matters, professional licensure and discipline, health care contract and managed care litigation, intellectual property strategy, labor and employment matters, medical malpractice defense, medical products liability defense, and tax-exempt financing.

Services Available

The following is a brief summary of some of the services we provide to our health care clients:

• Commercial Governance and Transactional Matters
  The firm's commercial lawyers have assisted our health care clients in a variety of transactional matters, including corporate organization and governance matters, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and partnerships, contract preparation, real property matters, trademark and copyright, licensing, contract preparation tax-exempt bond financing, commercial loan transactions. We also assist with the licensing of adjudication software applications and provide strategic advice regarding software functionality in connection with electronic transmission standards. We have also rendered advice and prepared documents for mergers and acquisitions by and between hospitals, managed care entities, hospices, and other health care providers. We have assisted hospital clients in the acquisition of property for hospital expansion, preparation of architectural and construction contracts for projects ranging up to multi-million dollar renovation of hospital facilities and have represented clients in the leasing of office space for medical practices in hospital-owned buildings.

• Tax Exempt Organizations & Exempt Financing
  Our attorneys have worked with clients on issues affecting tax-exempt organizations, including obtaining and maintaining tax-exempt status; the use of taxable or tax-exempt subsidiaries, joint ventures, HMOs and alternate delivery systems; avoiding private inurement; and minimizing the tax on unrelated trade or business income. We have also assisted clients in structuring their fundraising programs with a special emphasis on planned giving. We serve regularly as borrower's disclosure or underwriters' counsel in connection with 501(c)(3) financings.

• Regulatory Matters
  Our health care lawyers provide assistance on HIPAA, Medicare Fraud and Abuse, self-referral issues under the Stark law and Arizona Department of Health Services regulation, and environmental compliance matters.

• HIPAA Administrative Simplification Counseling
  Our attorneys provide legal counsel on all aspects of the Administrative Simplification aspects of HIPAA. Our attorneys provide compliance counseling with respect to the applicability and interpretation of the HIPAA Privacy Rule, Security Rule, and Electronic Standard Transactions and Code Sets Rule. We also provide strategic advice regarding the federal mandates ensuring the privacy and security of paper and electronic health care data. We also have extensive experience negotiating and drafting trading partner agreements, business associate agreements, data use agreements, and the multitude of HIPAA mandated notices, policies, and procedures. For our covered entity clients, we also review and revise HIPAA compliant documents such as notices of privacy practices and authorizations for the use and disclosure of protected health information. Our HIPAA analysis is uniquely tailored to the individual characteristics and covered functions of our clients.

• Patients' Rights and Confidentiality
  Through our representation of health care providers, we have been frequently called upon to give advice on a variety of issues related to informed consent, withholding or terminating treatment, the requirements of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, retention, disclosure and confidentiality of medical records, and the medical/moral issues related to these matters. In addition, we have prepared record release and informed consent forms, drafted policies and procedures regarding informed consent, the release of medical records and the withholding or termination of treatment, and have lectured extensively on these issues.

• Environmental Compliance
  Our firm has the capability to assist health care entities with environmental issues, including water quality, hazardous waste issues, permitting, and environmental liability associates with real estate transactions.

• Professional Licensing and Discipline
  The firm has substantial experience in representing physicians, dentists, psychologists, and other health care professionals in licensing and discipline matters. We have represented health care professionals before state licensing and regulatory boards and have advised them from the application stage through the successful appeal of licensure denial. We have also represented the regulatory boards adverse to licensees, and some of our attorneys have had experience serving as members of the boards.

• Medical Staff Matters
  The firm has substantial experience in matters involving hospital and managed care organization medical staffs. We have prepared, reviewed and revised medical staff bylaws for a number of hospitals both locally and in other states. On behalf of our clients, our health care attorneys have provided advice and representation in every aspect of the credentialing and fair hearing processes.

• Biotechnology & Life Sciences
  Jennings Strouss lawyers have extensive experience in the rapidly evolving and often complex legal areas affecting biotechnology and life sciences companies. Our lawyers advise our life science clients on intellectual property strategies, patents, the FDA regulatory process, venture capital, government funding strategies, and numerous types of agreements and transactions, including, licensing, partnership, strategic alliance and collaboration agreements. Our litigators provide patent and intellectual property protection and defend clients in liability and commercial claims.

• Managed Care Litigation
  The firm has significant experience in all aspects of HMO and managed care litigation issues, including ERISA and non-ERISA health care coverage and employee benefit issues, managed care contract disputes, provider payment issues, antitrust, peer review and credentialing, as well as representation of health maintenance organizations and physician-providers in quality assurance matters and fair hearings. We also have unique experience in representing Medicare+ Choice health maintenance organizations in coverage, contract and payment issues with providers, Medicare enrollees and the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

• Medical Malpractice and Product Liability Litigation
  The firm's litigation attorneys are highly experienced in defending health care providers in medical and dental malpractice actions. We represent hospitals, health care systems and managed care entities in their medical malpractice litigation and also provide representation to physicians and health care providers insured by a major physician-owned insurance carrier. We also represent manufacturers of medical devices in complex litigation proceedings. The firm's litigators have also successfully defended medical product manufacturers in product liability actions.

• Labor and Employment Law
  The attorneys in the firm's Labor and Employment Group are called upon to advise our health care clients on a variety of labor and employment issues, such as equal employment opportunity and employment discrimination requirements, sexual harassment, the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), the Family and Medical Leave Act, covenants not to compete, labor relations matters, wrongful discharge, wage and hour issues, and state and federal laws affecting employment policies. In addition, our attorneys have successfully defended the firm's health care clients, including a number of major hospitals, in a wide variety of employment-related lawsuits brought by their former employees. The firm's lawyers also regularly advise clients on the new legislative actions affecting employers.

• White Collar Criminal Defense
  The firm's criminal defense counsel have the capability to advise our clients regarding proper procedures in responding to criminal subpoenas, compliance programs, and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. We also represent individuals and entities in criminal defense matters.

  The interdisciplinary health care practice at Jennings Strouss has the experience and diversity to provide responsive, high quality legal services to meet the increasingly complex health care issues facing our clients.