Medical professionals, practice groups, hospitals, and health care businesses must carefully navigate the ever-changing landscape of regulations, competition, privacy laws, and professional ethics. At Wooden McLaughlin, we not only understand the unique challenges facing those in the health care industry, we guide our clients successfully through these complex legal issues on a daily basis. To do so, we provide clients the benefit of our attorneys skilled not only in health care law but also those knowledgeable in the corporate, insurance, employment, professional liability, and real estate areas of the law to provide a comprehensive approach.

For years, our lawyers have represented hospitals and doctors in matters related to the organization and operation of medical staffs, the appointment and credentialing of health care professionals, peer review and corrective action proceedings. We have extensive litigation experience in matters arising out of physician recruitment, employment and termination of employment, and in particular, disputes involving covenants not to compete and tortious interference of contracts.

Because health care clients operate in a business and professional environment that is extensively regulated at both the state and federal level, we also counsel clients in licensure issues and other matters arising out of the regulation of their operations and payment for their services. We provide counseling and litigation services in federal Anti-kickback and Stark disputes as well as False Claims Act litigation.

We provide health care clients a wealth of experience in the areas of:

• Physician and other health care professional contract drafting and negotiation
• Employment law subjects, including discrimination, wage and hour, hiring, evaluation, counseling, discharge, and workforce restructuring
• Organizational counseling
• Real estate acquisitions and dispositions, construction and development
• Risk management counseling
• The Ethics and Patient Referral Act (Stark)
• HIPAA
• Loss of licensure for institutions and individual providers
• Maintenance of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code
• Medicare and/or Medicaid decertification and fraud investigation
• Negotiation with governmental regulatory authorities
• The Medicare and Medicaid Anti-Kickback Statute
• Medical records
• Pharmacy
• State self-referral laws