Nobody likes to work for free. Physicians and other healthcare providers are frequently at risk of non-payment for valuable services to patients due to third-party payer mistakes and/or attempts to arbitrarily delay, reduce or avoid reimbursement. A common practice of payers is, for example, to deny reimbursement based on an…
Ending a professional relationship is not easy for anyone. But the demise of a healthcare business relationship among doctors often involves more risks, greater headaches, and more issues to tackle than non-healthcare businesses. Dividing up medical business assets is, for example, much more complex and involved than simply drawing a…
The parties have talked in abstract terms and danced. There seems to be a deal in the making. Negotiating the particulars of a written purchase agreement for the sale/purchase of a medical practice – the real test to see if you have a deal — is time consuming and potentially…
The amount of attention that physician recruitment receives from government eyes warrants recruitment agreements that are, ideally, airtight. So, what are key criteria for a physician recruitment agreement that is compliant and will work for both parties? There are many important elements of a good physician recruitment agreement, including the…
Many doctors feel the involvement of an insurance company or other third party payer in the practice of medicine is a source of headaches for their medical practice. Nothing on the horizon seems to indicate that red tape, administrative burdens, and an arbitrary manner by which some insurers and other…
On September 5, 2013, owners of Trust Care Health Services, Inc. (Trust Care) pled guilty in a Florida federal court to federal healthcare fraud charges. Roberto Marrero, Sandra Fernandez and Enrique Rodriguez, owned and operated Trust Care. Trust Care was a Florida corporation, incorporated in 2005 that did business as…
The price Americans will pay for Affordable Care Act (ACA) changes may include lost wages and job benefits due to the price tag of ACA compliance for employers. It may seem to many like a good and noble thing to require insurers to insure everyone irrespective of health conditions and…
The Medicare Strike Force of the FBI and HHS-OIG continues efforts to eliminate fraudulent healthcare providers from the healthcare arena. The Strike Force recently obtained a guilty plea by the former owner of a California durable medical equipment supply company (DME) business based on an alleged scheme to defraud Medicare…
The U.S. House voted recently to delay the so-called “individual mandate” of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). On July 17, 2013, the House passed the Fairness for American Families Act, H.R. 2668, sponsored by Rep. Todd Young (R-IN). Passage of H.R. 2668 sets the stage for a political show down…
The trend for physicians to work for a hospital or hospital system continues. Once a physician finds a job opportunity, one of the first details the physician and the hiring entity may discuss is the nature of the relationship. Will the doctor be an employee or an independent contractor? Often…