HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS
HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS
Exploring Critical Business and Legal Issues across the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industries
HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS
Exploring Critical Business and Legal Issues across the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industries
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Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Drew Elizabeth McCormick

Drew Elizabeth McCormick
Associate
Office: Boston
Years at Firm: 2

What is your favorite part about practicing health care law at McDermott? 

I get to work with world class lawyers on cutting edge issues and help our clients navigate the challenges of succeeding in a very dynamic, heavily regulated industry. I am constantly being challenged and learning new things, all while having the honor of helping guide our clients in transforming health care.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today? 

Definitely the ability to take on risk and succeed in a value-based payment paradigm. We are seeing many shifts in the industry, which are largely being driven by fundamental changes in reimbursement structures away from fee for service. Compounding this, the regulatory framework is lagging behind in many regards, creating tensions and uncertainty that our clients lean on us to help them resolve.

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Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Anisa Mohanty

Anisa Mohanty
Associate
Office: Washington, DC
Years at Firm: 3

What is your favorite part about practicing health care law at McDermott? 

I started out pre-med in college, but I quickly realized what excited me was the intersection between science, medicine, policy and law. Many of our clients are at the forefront of shaping policy in the life sciences space through their innovations, and the quality of our health care practice means we have the opportunity to partner with and support them in really exciting projects. I am grateful for the breadth and depth of knowledge and experience of my colleagues—it pushes me to be a better, smarter and savvier lawyer.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today?

Because our clients are addressing some of the most complex challenges in healthcare and healthcare delivery, often there aren’t straightforward regulatory paradigms for their businesses. Our clients want to do the right thing, but that can be challenging because their regulators haven’t yet articulated how they will enforce the law as it applies to their services and solutions. Digital health is a great example of this and there’s a lot of opportunity to advocate for our clients so that regulators can take industry perspectives into account when finalizing regulations.

What kind of client work [...]

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Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Erika Mayshar

Erika Mayshar
Partner
Office: Los Angeles
Years at Firm: 2

What is your favorite part about practicing health care law at McDermott? 

When I moved to McDermott, I was proud to be joining the nation’s top health care law practice,   but the industry rankings don’t tell the whole story. The breadth and depth of expertise are backed by a collegial and innovative culture that builds strong relationships among colleagues and clients. Health lawyers at McDermott truly enjoy their work and working with each other.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today? 

Industry disruption in health care is an ongoing reality for boards of directors and health system leadership. Being able to respond to moving-target opportunities is a challenge for leaders facing fast-paced regulatory change and economic pressure. The challenge is to determine what type of change makes sense for each organization – not to embrace disruption for the sake of staying current, but to seek opportunities that further the corporate mission and then implement change with meaningful stakeholder involvement. Tax-exempt nonprofit hospitals face additional hurdles, both cultural and legal, but are continually finding new ways to serve their communities and collaborate with for-profit businesses in creative ways.

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McDermott Named “Healthcare Team of the Year” by Chambers USA

International law firm McDermott Will & Emery was named 2019 “Healthcare Team of the Year” by Chambers USA at its awards ceremony celebrating legal excellence. This is the fourth time McDermott has received the honor – more than any other law firm in the awards’ history.

The “Healthcare Team of the Year” award comes on the heels of McDermott’s industry-leading health practice garnering a national Band 1 ranking in the Healthcare category of the 2019 edition of Chambers USA for the 10th consecutive year – also the only firm to hold that distinction.

“Our team is dedicated to helping health care companies push the boundaries of what it means to be innovative,” said McDermott Will & Emery Partner and International Head of McDermott’s Health Industry Advisory Group, Eric Zimmerman. “Receiving Chambers’ “Healthcare Team of the Year” award is a powerful testament to that work and to our passion for contributing to the health care and the legal industries at the highest levels. Thank you to our clients and to Chambers for recognizing McDermott again this year.”

McDermott Will & Emery is the nation’s leading healthcare law firm. The Health Industry Advisory group is the only health practice to receive top national rankings from U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms,” Chambers USA, The Legal 500 US and Law360. The practice was also recognized by Chambers as “Health Team of the Year” in 2010, 2013 and 2017. McDermott [...]

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Five Questions with a Health Policy Specialist: Mara McDermott of McDermott+Consulting

Mara McDermott
Vice President, McDermott+Consulting
Focus Area: Policy, Lobbying and Advocacy Strategies
Years at McDermott+Consulting: 1

What is your favorite part about your health policy work at McDermott+Consulting? 

My favorite part about working at McDermott+Consulting is the entrepreneurial spirit of the firm. Since arriving at the firm a year ago we have tested and implemented so many new ideas to better serve our clients at an incredibly fast pace. We have established a weekly Check Up article series to provide health policy updates from Washington, DC, started our Policy Breakfast Series for clients and built a new advocacy coalition to influence policy in Washington, DC, just to name a few. The firm is constantly encouraging and embracing innovation to improve client service.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today? 

I help clients engage with Congress and the Administration on health care policy issues pertaining to provider payment. Right now, we see a lot of opportunity in the physician payment space, working with this Administration to define the next steps in the movement from volume to value. This includes opportunities around new delivery models, such as Direct Contracting and Primary Care First, recently announced Administrative initiatives.

The greatest challenge has been the pace of significant changes in the regulatory [...]

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Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Megan Rooney

Megan Rooney
Partner
Office: Chicago
Years at Firm: 13

What is your favorite part about practicing health care law at McDermott? 

The team, the team, the team! It’s a pleasure to work with colleagues who have deep substantive expertise, prioritize client service, and are good human beings. As a healthcare M&A attorney, I am responsible for leading large teams of attorneys, including a variety of subspecialists, to drive efficient and effective outcomes and achieve business goals. I love knowing that, in nearly every instance, when an issue arises we have the specific expertise to handle it and there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

What is the biggest opportunity facing clients in your area of focus today? 

Our hospital and health system clients have a tremendous opportunity to improve the delivery of patient care, expand services provided to their communities and defend against the challenge of declining reimbursement through strategic partnerships. In addition to traditional hospital and health system M&A, our hospital and health system clients are increasingly pursuing Collaborative Transformations – that is, partnerships with non-traditional health care players. A successful Collaborative Transformation takes cultural integration between non-traditional partners, incorporating new technologies into health care regulatory compliance structures, and so much more.

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McDermott’s Health Team Dominates with a Decade in Chambers USA’s Top Spot; Again Secures Only National Band 1 Ranking for 2019

We are pleased to share that Chambers USA has once again named McDermott Health the only firm to receive a Band 1 national ranking in health care. This year’s Band 1 placement marks 10 consecutive years of securing a top national ranking in this prestigious law firm directory, and the ninth year that we have held this position exclusively. The Health team also garnered Band 1 state-level rankings in California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, DC—cities and states where we have substantial health law teams—and 29 McDermott health lawyers were ranked individually.

Click here to view the full announcement. 




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Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Amanda Enyeart

Amanda Enyeart
Partner
Office: Chicago
Years at Firm: 4

What is your favorite part about practicing health care law at McDermott? 

Definitely our people. I love the depth and breadth of expertise among my colleagues. We have highly experienced lawyers in just about every health care niche you can think of and this allows us to take on client work with confidence. On top of that, we have lawyers who are gifted strategists who can take a holistic and critical look at an issue from a broad perspective. I am constantly learning from my colleagues.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today? 

Our clients have the potential to transform health care delivery and improve quality of care.  We see forces aligning such as changes in payment models to reward value rather than volume and the integration of advanced technology in health care settings to support health care diagnosis and decision making that could actually result in improved health outcomes for many people.  Sometimes it seems like all you hear is a lot of hype and speculation – but we get to see through our interactions with clients that some things are really changing.

The flip side is that biggest challenge to this innovation is regulatory compliance that has not kept pace with the changes in health care. There is a real struggle for resources in health [...]

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Addressing Conflicts of Interest: It’s a Whole New Ballgame

In a new Governing Health vidcast, McDermott partner Michael Peregrine breaks down why you may need to revamp your conflicts of interest procedures, and how the general counsel and the compliance officer can work together to protect the health system from conflicts-related risks.

Many health systems’ conflict of interest policies and protocols haven’t been updated since the 1990s. While these approaches—based on duty of loyalty and simple concepts of financial interests—may have fit the bill in the past, today’s rapidly shifting environment poses new governance-related challenges that have direct implications for the process by which conflicts of interest are identified, disclosed and addressed. These challenges include:

  • Diversification of health system portfolios, featuring investments in a broadening scope of products, services and enterprises, particularly in the case of innovative technology and delivery of care platforms
  • Growing officer and director interest in investing alongside their health system
  • Swift consolidation of the inpatient health care provider market and increasing ambiguity in identifying competitors
  • Sharpening focus on material bias arising from personal relationships (intra-board or external)
  • Non-traditional market participants, including high-tech market disrupters and powerful new organizations formed by vertical or horizontal combination
  • State regulators’ attention and reaction to media reports regarding high-profile instances of conflicts of interest
  • The presence of constituent directors on corporate and joint venture boards
  • New case law focusing on how personal interests may affect leadership decisions

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Best of McDermott’s 2018 Health Care Litigation, Compliance & Investigations Forum

At a time when health care organizations are facing greater financial and reputational costs than ever before, more than 150 health care industry leaders, legal and compliance executives, and investors gathered for McDermott’s Health Care Litigation, Compliance & Investigations Forum at the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago to discuss strategies for proactively managing and effectively responding to compliance risks, investigations and litigation.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2014 to 2017, delivers the keynote presentation.

The event covered a wide range of issues, including fraud and abuse (such as False Claims Act and Stark Law matters), governance, cybersecurity, antitrust, white-collar, intellectual property, products liability and tax-exemption disputes. The event also featured a keynote address by Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2014 to 2017, on the foundations of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the ramifications of the elimination of the individual mandate and the ACA’s prospects going forward.

If your organization needs support in current litigation or wants to ensure best practices to help avoid one, we’re here to help.

Below are key insights from the sessions:

Every Day’s Adventure: How Leading GCs Are Thinking about Compliance and Enforcement

  • Collaboration between the general counsel and the compliance officer provides a proactive and team-oriented approach to substantive legal and policy issues.
  • Keys to effective collaboration include communication, coordination and a culture of sharing, coupled with respect for the [...]

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Chambers 2021 Top Ranked
U.S. News Law Firm of the Year 2022 Health Care Law
LEgal 500 EMEA top tier firm 2021
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