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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McDermott recently launched the second episode of its special edition podcast providing an in-depth discussion of the interplay between State Attorneys General enforcement authority and nonprofit Board of Directors responsibility in the governance and operation of health systems. This special edition of the Governing Health podcast series welcomed four prominent State Attorneys General (AGs) to discuss the transformation of the nonprofit health care sector.

In episode two, our panelists discussed how the evolution of nonprofit health care affects business activities, including M&A, Board of Directors obligations, and state nonprofit law across the health care landscape. Here are four key takeaways:

• Beware the dangers of “mission drift.” Mission drift occurs when a change in corporate purpose conflicts with donor intent. As large health care organizations increasingly take on all aspects of health care, they often acquire nonprofit facilities endowed with gift assets. Health systems must consider how the original donor intended for those assets to be used in the community, said Karen Gano, President of the National Association of State Charity Officials and Assistant Attorney General of Connecticut, Special Litigation Unit.
• Keep beneficiary interests front-and-center when considering a sale or a conversion to a for-profit business model. In New York, there is a statutory requirement that any sale of charitable assets must be for fair consideration and in the best interests of charitable beneficiaries, said Jim Sheehan, Chief of the New York Attorney General’s Charities Bureau. Even if a transaction makes good [...]
  
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