Health Care

Industry Team

Harris Beach has been at the forefront of structural change and regulatory compliance for the health care industry for decades. Our Health Care Industry Team has distinguished itself as a leader in the field through our progressive and innovative approach to handling the multitude of governmental regulations, certification, accreditation and compliance requirements faced by all public and private health care providers and suppliers, as well as our handling of some of the largest industry transactions and financings in New York state.

With intense competition, rising operational costs, new reimbursement arrangements, and heightened regulatory scrutiny, the health care industry relies on our firm’s extensive knowledge and experience in their industry. Harris Beach represents the health care industry in a wide range of legal matters including operations, compliance, litigation, labor, third-party reimbursement, financing, tax, real estate, environmental issues, and mergers, acquisitions and affiliations.

Our attorneys routinely counsel a wide variety of institutional and individual health care providers, suppliers, multi-provider organizations, managed care organizations and insurers, and integrated delivery systems. We also handle the more personal side of health care, including medical malpractice defense and personnel issues.

Our services include:

Antitrust

Harris Beach has an antitrust practice that is capable of evaluating multi-institutional transactions and presenting or defending them to federal and state governmental agencies, including, but not limited to, Hart-Scott-Rodino pre-merger notifications to the FTC. We also counsel and represent clients on a variety of antitrust and competition issues.

Financing Services

We help our clients finance and refinance all types of indebtedness, including commercial financing and programs involving guarantees or subsidies by state or federal government agencies. We also assist with financial reorganizations and bankruptcies, as well as billing, reimbursement and insurance matters, and collections.

General Corporate

Harris Beach has extensive experience in counseling and representing both tax-exempt and taxable health care organizations in their corporate affairs, including organization and reorganization, government filings and internal documentation. We have created many parent holding companies, licensed provider entities and development foundations, and we have successfully converted several publicly owned health care facilities to ownership by public benefit corporations or private not-for-profit corporations.

Labor and Employment Law

We handle all aspects of labor and employment law, including unions and collective bargaining, labor contract administration, employment discrimination, employee benefits, health and safety issues, immigration, personnel policies, and employee matters related to the merger, purchase or sale of health care facilities.

Media Relations

Harris Beach also serves the health care industry as a resource for effective communications strategies for crisis or highly controversial situations or challenging communications issues. Our media relations support includes consultations between clients, firm attorneys and firm communications/public relations professionals.

Medical Malpractice

Harris Beach provides the healthcare industry with medical malpractice defense and risk management advice. We advise our clients on protocols, procedures, and documentation that are designed to promote legal compliance and quality, thereby reducing exposure to lawsuits.

Mergers, Acquisitions and Affiliations

Our attorneys evaluate, design, and help implement statutory mergers and consolidations, affiliations through common parent corporations and partial management corporations, asset and stock acquisitions, joint ventures, and other multi-institutional arrangements.

Operations

We assist the health care industry with all types of clinical and business operational matters, including the organization of professional staffs; the preparation of bylaws, rules, regulations, policies, procedures, and protocols; contracting for professional and administrative services; contracting for clinical and business equipment and supplies; the recruitment of professional personnel and professional disciplinary matters.

Real Estate and Environmental

Our staff provides legal support in the areas of property acquisition, financing, architectural and construction contracting, leasing, and negotiating with local governments to secure all the necessary approvals by meeting zoning, subdivision and environmental requirements.

Regulatory Compliance

Our attorneys offer legal counsel in all areas of regulatory compliance, as well as representation before state and federal health care regulatory bodies and local zoning and planning boards. We also assist industry clients in meeting accreditation requirements.

Tax, Pensions and Benefits

Harris Beach attorneys provide a wide range of services, including securing and maintaining tax-exempt status, income tax liability, compliance with state and federal reporting requirements and audit representation. We also handle contested tax matters, real property exemption, tax assessment, and pension and profit sharing plans.

Third Party Reimbursement

Harris Beach counsels and represents the health care industry in reimbursement matters, including the prospective identification of compliance issues and the defense of retrospective challenges by federal and state regulatory authorities. We routinely negotiate with, and litigate against, federal and state agencies on behalf of providers and suppliers concerning Medicare and Medicaid payments.