With the current economic climate, more and more physicians are trying to do more with less — to utilize economies of scale to capture referrals and steady streams of patients. As such, more and more health care facilities, providers and physician groups are consolidating to bring together multispecialty practices.
In these cases, all contractual issues need to be examined. This includes:
- Noncompetes
- Employment agreements
- Independent contractor and professional service agreements
- Termination of medical staff privileges
All of these affect continued employment of physicians in multispecialty “supergroups,” independent practice organizations and MSO entities. Additionally, issues arise during sale of assets, from record release compliance to EMR systems to managed care contractual considerations with respect to particular private insurance companies or managed care entities. All of these issues have extensive laws governing compliance. A multitude of questions may arise, including:
- Who can make decisions?
- What happens when a physician leaves a group — can he or she see his or her own patients?
- Can physicians come and go from the health care entity and keep their contracts and still be allowed to participate with a particular private insurance company or managed care entity?
- Is the compensation structure compliant with Stark and Florida fee-splitting requirements?
Failure to adhere to them can result in catastrophic outcomes, financially and legally. As such, it is critical to partner with an expert health care law firm that can address all issues in the most efficient, economical and effective way.
At Lowe & Evander, P.A., our health care law attorneys are prepared to put their years of experience to help you address any integration issue. We are prepared to help:
- Draft agreements
- Shareholder
- Service provider
- Operations
- Noncompete
- Nondisclosure
- Nonsolicitation
- Provide regulatory and anti-trust analysis
- Negotiate with hospitals and wholly owned subsidiaries in purchases
- Provide counsel to merging and acquisition issues
- Contract preparation
- Managed care contracts
We are prepared to retain skilled anti-trust lawyers in the event that a transaction is large enough that it involves issues of the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice. There are several safe harbors with which we work on a regular basis to determine if a physician group practice merger, practice acquisition or hospital system acquisition by another practice may invoke some anti-trust issues in a certain marketplace.
To schedule an initial consultation to discuss co-management arrangements and contracts with one of our Florida physician/hospital integration attorneys, call (407) 332-6353 or contact us online.