5 Times Your Medical Practice May Need A Healthcare Attorney

If you run a medical practice, you may think you only need a healthcare attorney if you are faced with a lawsuit. Not only do healthcare attorneys offer you legal representation, they also help with your operations. These professionals can guide you in what accreditation certifications make you stand out and what standards you must meet. The following are five times your practice may need a healthcare attorney.

If you are setting up new partnerships

The opportunity to merge, buy, or sell a practice is a likely scenario in a physician’s professional career. The benefits to you may include having partners that you can rely on for clinical, personal, and financial support. Merging practices has many benefits too including having more capital for technology and infrastructure and helping the community.

With partnerships can come disagreements, distrust, poor leadership, and contrasting visions for the practice. A healthcare attorney comes into play to uncomplicate the difficulties that many face when taking part in this type of transaction. Attorneys understand the laws and regulations of the healthcare industry. They can help with issues associated with autonomy, compensations, and buy-out benefits, for example.

A healthcare attorney will look to protect your best interest if you are entering into a business partnership. He or she can guide you on technical situations that will arise as well.

When you need help with employee contracts

Contracts are binding documents highlighting the scope and conditions of working with an employer. For a healthcare practice, the fine print includes salary and incentives, call and coverage, benefits, malpractice insurance, non-compete clauses, termination, and more.

A healthcare attorney will help you understand malpractice insurance and what to do if a lawsuit is filed against you. The most common malpractice insurance options are comprehensive and tail cover. Your attorney can help you decide which is best based on the current and future circumstances of your practice.

A healthcare attorney will help you understand the professional options associated with non-compete clauses and termination clauses too. Termination clauses define your options of dissolving a contract with or without cause and what steps should be taken by each party. The cost implications are important to look at in detail as well. All these issues are important because they protect your business against violating the law.

During malpractice allegations

There are times that a patient may feel that a doctor was negligent when conducting medical treatment. They may decide to file a lawsuit against the doctor or practice if this is the case. If this happens to you, you will need a healthcare attorney who not only understands litigation, but also regulations and laws within the industry.

The expertise and knowledge that a healthcare attorney has will help protect you. They can conduct a thorough investigation to argue against accusations.

When you need help with payor audits

In the health sector, payor audits are routine. These are reviews of bills incurred for services provided by the practice and physicians. There are many different types of audits. The main ones are Medicare audits, Medicaid audits, and private (third-party) payor audits.

When you receive an audit request, you will need to talk to a healthcare attorney to review it. They can assist you in supplying everything reasonably requested by the auditor. Your healthcare attorney can also point out flaws in factual, legal, or procedural standings of the auditor. This can save you money in cases of billing privileges being revoked or suspended.

When retiring from your medical practice

As a physician, there comes a time you will need to put your tools down and let the younger generation take over. When this happens, having a healthcare attorney explain to you what you can and cannot do will be helpful. He or she will guide you through the options you have for your practice. In the case of selling, the healthcare attorney can help you throughout the entire process.

In case you want to take up other opportunities, the healthcare attorney will guide you on the restrictions that will apply as soon as you leave the practice. This will help you remain compliant with any laws that may affect your new ventures.

Hiring a healthcare attorney for your practice can help you be prepared for a variety of situations. Contact the Healthcare Attorneys at Brown & Fortunato to learn more about our services and Practice Areas. You can call us at (833) 228-6300 or Contact Us via email to speak with one of our experts.