Duane Morris LLP

Today's healthcare providers focus on cost-effective ways to manage and grow their businesses. At Duane Morris, our full-time healthcare lawyers understand these market demands and assist healthcare providers to create business and legal value in all types of situations—transactional, regulatory and litigation.

We tailor our services to specific segments of the healthcare industry, including:

• Hospitals
• Physicians
• Post-Acute Care and Senior Services
• Information Technology
• Litigation
• mHealth, Telemedicine and Health Information Technology

With decades serving the healthcare industry, Duane Morris has one of the most experienced and respected health law practice groups among U.S. law firms. From offices in major markets in the United States, as well as London, Asia and the Middle East, more than 45 Duane Morris lawyers counsel leading organizations in every major sector of the healthcare industry on regulatory, business transactions, litigation and other matters.

Innovative Healthcare Law

We develop innovative and creative ways to help healthcare clients increase their profitability and protect their assets. From representing hospitals in disputes with payors to receive adequate payment for their services to creating computer-assisted gap assessment tools for compliance, Duane Morris has developed a reputation as an innovative problem solver.

In this respect, we work differently from other law firm healthcare practices—our culture encourages teamwork and professional leadership as well as innovation. Many of our healthcare lawyers have direct experience working in the healthcare industry, giving us a firsthand perspective on what's needed to succeed and how best to accomplish transactions, navigate regulatory frameworks and manage litigation-related situations.

National Practice/Regional Focus

While we have a prominent national practice, we also focus on the regional issues that matter most to our clients. Whether the client is an academic medical center, community hospital, physician practice, nursing home or an assisted living/senior housing provider, we can serve the full spectrum of their needs—from local and regional issues to matters with national and even international implications.

Some of our areas of healthcare concentration include:

• Care and Disease Management
• Certificate of Need, Licensing and Change of Ownership
• Faculty Practice Plans
• Governance Issues
• Healthcare and Private Equity
• Healthcare Fraud and Abuse
• Healthcare Litigation
• Healthcare Products Suppliers and Distributors
• Home Healthcare and Community-Based Services
• Hospice and Palliative Care Services
• Insurance Reimbursement/Payor Contracting
• Legislative and Public Policy Issues, including Lobbying
• Mergers, Acquisitions and Business Transactions
• mHealth, Telemedicine and Health Information Technology
• Post-Acute Care and Senior Services
• Privacy and Security for Healthcare Providers
• Regulatory Compliance
• Services for Hospitals
• Services for Physicians

Physician Services Group

Business Issues: Physicians face a number of business issues in the current healthcare environment, including: decreasing governmental and private rates of reimbursement, managed care contracting and contract enforcement, competition for delivery of ancillary services, physician-hospital joint ventures, practice expansion opportunities, incentive compensation arrangements, buy-in and buy-out arrangements, noncompetition agreements, exclusive contracts, affordable medical malpractice insurance, billing, coding and claims denial problems and staff privilege issues.

Duane Morris Capabilities: Our healthcare attorneys have direct and extensive experience in addressing the myriad of business issues facing physicians. Our attorneys have wide experience in negotiating and enforcing managed care contracts, including litigation against managed care companies. We have developed procedures to achieve legally compliant ancillary service and other practice expansion opportunities, including unique physician-hospital joint ventures.

Our attorneys understand the business aspects of physician practices, including preparation of physician employment agreements, compensation plans, buy-in and buy-out issues and non-competition provisions. A subsidiary of Duane Morris employs medical industry professionals to provide cutting-edge solutions to billing, coding and claims denial issues.

Services for Hospitals

Business Issues: The business issues hospitals face are extraordinarily complex. Administrators must balance the needs of patients and staff with the growing uncertainty that results from the increased demand for medical care and a decrease in the amount of federal and state dollars to pay for it. Hospitals are dependent on Medicare and Medicaid financing, which leads to disputes involving reimbursement for services rendered and interpretation of state and federal regulations. The negotiation and enforcement of managed care contracts demand knowledge of the cost of services, as well as state and federal law governing insurance, managed care and healthcare contracting. Professional and institutional licensure and accreditation bodies are becoming increasingly vigilant, due to reports questioning the quality of care rendered in academic and community hospitals. Liability and staffing issues predominate as hospitals are faced with a shortage of nursing and medical staff, due to the high cost of malpractice insurance and threats of collective bargaining.

Employment and staff credentialing issues remain important to hospitals striving for a high level of professionalism while attempting to decrease professional liability. Governance at healthcare facilities is under increased scrutiny, leading to concern about compliance with federal and state common law, statutory and regulatory mandates related to fiduciary obligations of board members, senior management and highly compensated physicians. Concerns about fraud and abuse, kickbacks and Stark law violations dominate the thinking of hospital financial managers as institutions seek to expand their services through joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions. HIPAA regulations and homeland security issues are requiring hospitals to implement major changes in policies and procedures throughout their organizations.

Duane Morris Capabilities: Our healthcare lawyers are experienced in handling these types of diverse issues. For example, several of our lawyers have served as in-house general counsel at major teaching hospitals and major trade associations. Others have extensive experience counseling healthcare systems, community and specialty hospitals. We also serve as general counsel to a number of hospitals and health systems, and are on the preferred counsel list for others. The tax and corporate lawyers in our healthcare group have represented hospitals in transactions of all types. These include hospital restructurings and expansions, conversions, acquisitions, development of hospital-physician joint ventures, ambulatory surgery, radiation oncology, cardiology and lithotripsy centers.

We represent hospital clients in administrative hearings and litigation involving managed care, employment and commercial disputes, reimbursement matters, medical staff relationships, insurance and liability questions of all kinds. We understand hospital finance, cost accounting and reimbursement issues and have developed creative solutions to difficult problems.

Our lawyers represent the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania and work closely with hospital associations in other states. We also work with a number of hospitals in academic medical centers and are well versed in the issues faced by academic hospitals and faculty practice plans. We have represented hospitals in connection with research studies and clinical trials. Attorneys and medical professionals, employed by a Duane Morris subsidiary, work with hospitals to provide innovative solutions to problems related to billing, coding and denial of claims.

Post-Acute Care and Senior Services

Business Issues: From development of new facilities to general operational matters, long-term care and senior services providers need legal assistance and counsel in many aspects of their business. Our practice in this area is designed to meet these providers’ specific needs and relies on significant involvement and understanding of the industry and the government agencies that regulate it. Our approach to representation of long-term care and senior services providers involves a coordinated effort among lawyers with experience in relevant subject matters, including health law, corporate law, tax-exempt law, employment law, information technology law, real estate law and litigation.

Duane Morris Capabilities: Our Post-Acute Care and Senior Services practice is both transactional and regulatory. We represent virtually all segments of the post-acute care and senior services industry, including skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilities, continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs), assisted living and seniors housing communities, home care agencies, hospices and adult day healthcare providers (ADHCs). Our clients range from the smallest single-facility providers to some of the largest providers of post-acute care, assisted living and senior services in the U.S. We have a broad range of experience and knowledge in the post-acute care industry.

"In my discussions with Duane Morris leaders, they frequently speak about how diversity within their firm has enabled them to better serve their diverse clients. They understand that investing in diversity is a wise business decision that positions them for the marketplace of the future."

Don Liu
Senior VP, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary
Xerox Corporation

At Duane Morris, achieving diversity is paradoxical. By supporting and celebrating the differences of our attorneys - and the individual strengths that they bring - our firm culture expands, fostering creative solutions for our clients. But diversity at Duane Morris does not mean that we have a certain number of diverse attorneys; true diversity means that it is no longer noteworthy to see diverse lawyers leading our practice groups or managing client relationships. Ascending to positions of leadership and greater responsibility and providing the highest levels of client service is simply what is expected of all our lawyers. Diversity is another strong asset that adds to our collective abilities to meet the needs of our clients.

Our vision of diversity at Duane Morris is to realize an environment in which our lawyers' outstanding qualities are not just measured by ethnicity, race, gender and sexual orientation, but more importantly, that our lawyers are remarkable as excellent attorneys above all else. Only then can we celebrate our differences while focusing on the common pursuit of legal excellence which everyone shares at Duane Morris.

To reach this goal, Duane Morris understands that the familiar diversity strategies and policies that most law firms have are needed. Without demanding results from such policies, most law firms are bound to fail in even achieving numerical hiring and retention goals. Duane Morris has been proactive and ambitious in its efforts to improve diversity at the firm, and has set deadlines for reaching the milestones which mark our progress. To create a more diverse law firm, Duane Morris is:

• Committed to strategically increasing our diversity levels, which is currently at 10 percent.
• Bringing together our Diversity Committee and our Hiring and Retention Committee to raise diversity as an important factor in our hiring decisions.
• Dedicated to improving retention by building upon our monitoring and mentoring program for all diverse associates.

Combining new initiatives with our longstanding diversity efforts, Duane Morris has seen increasingly positive results. In the Minority Law Journal's annual diversity survey of the nation's largest 260 firms, Duane Morris continued to improve its regional and national ranking, rising to number 136 of all firms surveyed. Our strides in Philadelphia are encouraging; in a city known for both the racial diversity of its population and the lack thereof in its law firms, Duane Morris is one of only two law firms to exceed the national average of minority partners at all law firms. Additionally, Duane Morris leads all national law firms based in Philadelphia in the number of Latino partners. Nearly 30 percent of all of our attorneys are women, and more than 20 percent of our partners are women.

In our approach to diversity, progress in racial, gender and cultural diversity cannot be measured in numbers alone. Duane Morris has focused our diversity initiatives on both increasing the number of diverse associates and addressing the challenges diverse attorneys face in building lasting careers and rising to senior and leadership positions. While several of our key practice groups are led by diverse partners and female partners, Duane Morris endeavors to create a culture which will foster a deep pool of such attorneys who can then develop into the firm's future leaders. Duane Morris understands that simply hiring diverse associates will not change the diversity of the firm; Duane Morris is working to mentor and retain diverse associates so that our progress in racial, gender and cultural diversity is also reflected at the highest levels of leadership within the firm.

Our progress on gender diversity has been profound. We have no glass ceilings: women hold positions of leadership at all levels of management at the firm. Women lead a number of our key practice groups, including our Energy, Immigration and International practices, and serve on the firm's Executive Committee. The success of our female attorneys at Duane Morris has not gone unnoticed. Barbara Adams was chair of the firm's Finance Practice until her appointment by Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell to serve as General Counsel of the Commonwealth. In 2004, our longtime General Counsel, Gene E.K. Pratter, was approved by the United States Senate and is now a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Our efforts to improve diversity extend beyond our firm's walls. The chair of our Diversity Committee, Nolan N. Atkinson, Jr., recognized the lack of diversity in Philadelphia's legal community and formed the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group. Nolan now serves as the chair of the organization, a consortium of 25 law firms and corporations that commits to employing at least one diverse first-year law student each as a summer associate. From this program, law students of diverse backgrounds gain access to what was once an exclusive legal community, and now have the opportunity to learn and develop their legal careers with experience at Philadelphia's top law firms.

In addition to our involvement in the Philadelphia area, Duane Morris has increased our presence at national conferences and events focused on diversity. We sponsor the Hispanic National Bar Association and its job fair. Duane Morris is also a longtime supporter and sponsor of the Equality Forum, a national gay and lesbian rights organization. Duane Morris continues to sponsor the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, and is active in other associations of diverse attorneys including: the Asian American Bar Association of the Delaware Valley; the Charles Houston Bar Association; Cuban Bar Association; Korean American Lawyers Association; National American Indian Housing Counsel and the National Bar Association.

The challenge of improving gender, ethnic and cultural diversity at Duane Morris is an ongoing effort that has the support of the entire firm. Duane Morris has been at the vanguard in supporting gender diversity throughout the firm beginning a generation ago. Our diversity programs are leading to similar success in improving racial and national origin diversity at Duane Morris. But even as we share these examples of Duane Morris attorneys and our involvement in numerous legal events, associations and programs for diversity, our hope is that such examples will no longer be necessary to mention in the future. We hope that through our efforts, and the efforts of other law firms, these stories become so common that they are no longer the remarkable accomplishments they are today, but simply routine aspects of the legal world tomorrow.