Are you looking for a health care attorney in San Diego?  What type of work does a health care attorney do?  How can the Watkins Firm’s 40+ years of experience serving the medical business and healthcare communities throughout California help your practice or medical business to avoid challenges, compliance issues and legal disputes?

Key takeaways when looking for a health care attorney in San Diego or anywhere in California:

• California is one of the heaviest and most complex regulatory environments in which to be a healthcare provider or business.  This is especially true when your medical business is also an employer.
• Compliance with regulatory issues and complex federal, state, and local laws, regulations, and ordinances requires constant diligence, and sound advice and counsel from your medical business attorney.
• The business side of any health care-related business from entity formation, including a Management Services Organization or MSO, to contracting, employment issues, disputes and lawsuits requires an experienced, proven health care business lawyer.

You may have many questions about what to look for in your health care attorney in San Diego.

What does a health care attorney do?
A healthcare attorney advises healthcare providers, medical practices, and healthcare business entities to ensure strong governance and compliance, especially with regulatory issues such as Stark Law and HIPAA.  Watkins Firm health care lawyers are experienced business attorneys who help with everything from business formation, contracts, mergers and acquisitions, buy-sell agreements, legally attracting investment, all questions regarding your firm’s responsibilities as a California employer, as well as proven strategies to avoid disputes and lawsuits, and to resolve them quickly and efficiently if and when they arise.

When should a medical practice hire a healthcare lawyer?
Every medical practice or health care business entity should have an experienced health care lawyer.  This is especially true if you or your firm faces an audit, investigation, dispute, employment dispute or disciplinary action, as well as when drafting or reviewing contracts, policies and procedures or other business contracts.

Can your Watkins Firm healthcare attorney help with compliance audits?
Yes. We help design and implement compliance policies and procedures, conduct proactive compliance reviews and represent clients during state and federal audits.

What happens if a provider is accused of fraud?
The consequences of a fraud allegation for any healthcare business or medical practice can include fines, exclusion from Medicare/Medicaid, or even criminal exposure. If you or your health care business is involved in any dispute involving allegations of fraud it is important to immediately contact the Watkins Firm health care dispute team for a free consultation at (858) 535-1511.

Do your health care lawyers handle employment disputes?
Yes. The Watkins Firm has 40+ years of experience in employment defense and related disputes, and  regularly advise medical employers, practices, and healthcare business clients on staffing issues involving contracts, wage and hour disputes, PAGA actions, and regulatory issues or investigations.  You need an experienced, proven health care attorney in San Diego or if you conduct business or practice anywhere in California.

Pro-Tip: “Broadly speaking, health care providers are supposed to provide efficient, honest, non fraudulent care for people’s health and all of the processes that go into making them able to do so. And bill for it. Bill, the federal government, bill private insurance is included. And there are several departments that oversee things like that. There’s your Department of Health and Human Services. There’s Department of Managed Healthcare that does private and public health, that has their guidelines and regulations. There’s compliance with HIPAA. There’s compliance with anti-kickback statutes.

The Department of Health and Human Services lists five areas of fraud and regulations that they claim are and they know are very important to them, and they enforce them. And those five areas are false claims, making false claims for health care. I saw one that actually went into criminal prosecution where in Orange County there was a healthcare provider that was providing services and charging it to Medicare and for years, and this guy never saw the patients, and that wasn’t enough. He had nurses and non nurses who just wore white coats seeing the patients, and then that wasn’t enough. So he had those same people bill for seeing the patients when even they didn’t see the patients by the time they put him in jail and he had amassed over $60 million in fraudulent charges that he collected. He was living the life and they got them, put them away. All those patients got terrible healthcare. And now bigger budgets are out there to go enforce these against honest doctors to make sure they cross every T and dot every I.

most are not told where they can get their customers from. And doctors and lawyers are, and doctors and health care care providers are really told. They’re told on a state level, if you want to get these kind of clients, you better do it in certain ways. Otherwise you are going to be in trouble and you’ll be paying penalties and you’ll be subject to licensed hearings and fines and suspension of business and everything you can imagine. And then on the federal side, they have the stark laws, anti-kickback statutes there too. If you want to work for Medicare or any federal budget, you’ve got to comply with those as well, which say you cannot have any referral source unless it meets one of the exemptions under the statute.

We’re the ones setting the outline with the doctors going through the compliance program. Most of healthcare providers already have experience in this area. They’ve worked in a medical office before. They’ve had to deal with admin. They’d have to deal with managing partners. So they have experience in that area, and they come to us with questions and we’re ready with those answers.

HIPAA has grown. HIPAA was just “keep my information confidential,” but now we have the computer age, and in addition to requirements that you have all of your patient’s information kept confidential, there’s also requirements that you make it available for anyone with a click of a mouse to look at it if they’re qualified. So we have HIPAA that says you’re supposed to keep all the things confidential. And then we have the High Tech Act, which is health information technology for economic and clinical health. And you have to comply with that. And you have Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, tala, which says you have to have it ready and accessible for emergency treatment. So that access to their health record will not in any way get interfere with their health and their care in an emergency.

So complying with all those things, takes knowledge, takes a team of coaches, your lawyer, not your banker, your accountant, believe it or not, to budget for that. And whoever you hire as your technology officer or your management consultant or your team, they’re outside sources that we work with all the time to make sure you’re in compliance.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

We invite you to review our podcast Episode 37 – Medical and Health Care Business Corporate Governance as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.

Meet Dan Watkins:

Daniel W. Watkins is a true people person who sincerely listens. He cares about things that occur in other people’s lives. Dan enjoys digging into the facts and finding creative solutions to problems. He is not shy about giving his opinion either.

Dan’s interest in people make him deeply invested in every relationship and his exuberant personality makes him a true litigator. Dan fights for his clients with a fierce and calculated commitment.

Dan has practiced in the areas of business, medical practices and healthcare business, high tech/science, real estate and employment defense law since 1987. He is a seasoned litigator and true trial attorney with over 50 jury and bench trials to his credit. Dan has successfully represented both large companies and individuals and achieved substantial victories in well-publicized trials throughout California and the U.S.

He is experienced in business and corporate formation and administration, as well as all forms of alternative dispute resolution, including binding arbitration and mediation.

THE ROAD TO BECOMING A BUSINESS LAWYER AND LITIGATOR

Dan has almost 40 years of experience working with, for and against some of the largest insurance companies in the country. He has successfully tried and litigated cases in the areas of Healthcare Compliance, Commercial Litigation, Unfair Business Practices, Fraud, Breach of Contract, Battery, Premises Liability, Product Defect, Medical Malpractice, Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Construction Defect, as well as Unfair Competition, Defamation, and Trade Secrets.

In December 2003, Dan commenced litigation against Health South Surgery Centers-West, Inc and its’ subsidiaries, exposing the company’s extensive mismanagement and misconduct of its’ surgery centers. Dan has also been asked by some of California’s largest municipalities and corporations to conduct legally required investigations into matters involving alleged employment discrimination and harassment.