Health Care & Pharmaceutical

Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are highly regulated and face complex legal challenges with respect to their business operations. Regulatory requirements, such as fraud and abuse, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, self-referral prohibitions, compliance, privacy, false claims, drug pricing, managed care, and patient rights are unique to the healthcare industry. Others, such as mergers and acquisitions, licensing, information technology, financing, risk management, bankruptcy, and exempt organizations, involve additional complexities for healthcare and pharmaceutical companies due to the nature of the industry.

With the cross-disciplinary support of attorneys from Seyfarth Shaw’s other practice groups, our healthcare and pharmaceutical attorneys have the broad-based expertise necessary to meet the complex and ever-changing needs of healthcare and pharmaceutical clients.

Representative Clients

Seyfarth Shaw’s healthcare and pharmaceutical attorneys represent clients and organizations of all types across the healthcare industry, including: professional associations, hospital and health systems, long-term care providers, managed care organizations, pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmaceutical distributors, physician and dental practice groups, healthcare finance companies, healthcare service providers, healthcare information system providers, biotechnology companies, venture capital and private equity investors, exempt organizations, medical product companies, and diagnostic product companies.

Experience

We provide counsel in several principal areas of healthcare and pharmaceutical law including licensing, distribution and product acquisitions; mergers and acquisitions; fraud and abuse, compliance and related regulations; labor & employment issues; intellectual property; financing; and other types of business issues. Our corporate and securities attorneys also provide legal services as outside general counsel and as special counsel to a variety of healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. We regularly advise clients in business planning to achieve their optimal tax, liability, regulatory, management and financial objectives.
Seyfarth Shaw’s principal capabilities for healthcare and pharmaceutical companies include the following:

Transactions
We represent a range of privately and publicly held healthcare entities in mergers, acquisitions, and other forms of business combinations and dispositions. Our corporate attorneys work closely with the firm’s other practice groups to address transaction-related legal issues such as corporate structure and governance, real estate, land use, antitrust, tax, and labor & employment. Our healthcare attorneys also represent clients in connection with the acquisition of various healthcare companies, strategic alliances, sales of assets, distribution channels, affiliations, joint ventures, financing, and workouts.

Finance
Our attorneys represent healthcare lenders and borrowers in numerous forms of financial transactions such as real estate and asset-based loan transactions, receivable-based financings, management buyouts, leveraged and synthetic leases, sale and leaseback arrangements, private equity transactions, leveraged buyouts, bond issuances, securities offerings and tax-exempt financing.

Fraud and Abuse and Related Regulations
The government has turned an increasingly critical eye toward healthcare providers, particularly with respect to the types of arrangements that exist between providers and other parties regarding referrals, compensation schemes, and marketing and practice ownership. Our healthcare attorneys regularly structure transactions to comply with Stark, anti-kickback and other Medicare and Medicaid regulatory requirements. Additionally, we advise healthcare and pharmaceutical clients regarding healthcare regulatory restrictions on various business practices, risk management regarding Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, CMS audits and investigations, and fraud and abuse compliance.

Licensing and Regulatory Matters
We counsel and assist numerous healthcare and pharmaceutical clients with licensing matters, certificates of need, medical staff privileges, privacy, antitrust and HIPAA compliance.

Labor and Employment Issues
Our attorneys proactively assess the labor and employment needs of clients and provide cost-effective and efficient solutions to workforce-related issues. For example, we help clients prepare physician employment agreements and compensation models; develop compliance plans and model HIPAA policies and procedures; prepare employment policies and procedures; draft and implement benefit plans and conduct risk management seminars geared toward healthcare providers.

Intellectual Property
Seyfarth Shaw has a cross-disciplinary approach to providing intellectual property advice to healthcare clients. Our dedicated team of attorneys offers extensive experience in advertising, marketing, copyright, trademark and unfair competition law as well as significant experience in Internet, information technology, litigation, and antitrust matters. We have represented numerous healthcare companies regarding protection of intellectual property and enforcement of intellectual property rights.