Healthcare Operations
We fix problems, but our goal is to anticipate and prevent them. We partner with healthcare clients to interpret and implement external regulations, to develop internal operational policies, and to honestly assess and account for the limits of their services.
Our team has imbedded members within some of the region’s largest healthcare systems during periods of transition, serving the functions of in-house counsel. We consistently provide on-call risk and legal services to emergency departments, behavioral health units, and end-of-life decision makers across Missouri and Illinois. Our reputation rests on the ability to evaluate and respond quickly to issues for which there is sometimes no clear precedent. This requires us to interpret the gaps in legal frameworks like HIPAA, the HITECH Act, the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act, CMS Conditions of Participation, The PREP Act, EMTALA, and state Probate Codes, as well as reconcile conflicts between state and federal regulatory schemes.
Recent presentations to healthcare and professional organizations include:
- Legal Boundaries to Pregnancy Management in the ED: the rule of EMTALA after Dobbs (St. Louis Area Health Lawyers Association)
- Guardianships in Healthcare (Missouri and Kansas CLE)
- Casual Communications Create Challenging Cases (Client Seminar)
- Proper Charting and Litigation Pitfalls (Missouri Association of Nursing Home Administrators)
- Pressure Ulcers: current trends and mitigating risk (Missouri League for Nursing)
- Chaos in Reproductive Health: Did Dobbs trigger a Constitutional Crisis? (Missouri and Kansas CLE)
- HIPAA Beyond Hospitals (Missouri CLE)
- Patient Privacy: an Overview of Medicare’s Red Flags Rule, HIPAA, and the HITECH Act. (Medical Group Management Association)
- HIPAA / HITECH Refresher and Rules for Proper Charting (Missouri Assisted Living Association)
- Managing Risk in Adult Daycare (Missouri Adult Day Services Association)
- From Pregnancy to Emergency: setting abortion policy in the ED (Client Risk Council)
- Patient Safety and Quality Improvement: the Confidentiality of Quality Data Under Federal Law. (St. Louis Area Healthcare Risk Managers)
- Discovery: Confidentiality, Privilege and the Right to Investigate (St. Louis Area Healthcare Risk Managers)
- Balancing a Patient’s Right to Privacy with a Doctor’s Right to Defend: How HIPAA and other privacy constraints impact complex litigation. (Lorman Education Services)