Jokes abound on the complexities of the tax code. And attorneys are well-aware of how difficult immigration law can be. But it takes an in-depth knowledge of health care law to understand how complicated it truly is, not to mention the substantial risks involved for your clients.
By far, the biggest challenge health care law attorneys face is efficiently navigating the many fraud, abuse, and compliance laws that regulate the health care industry. If you do not stay up to date on these continually changing laws, it could lead to significant penalties for your client.
One mistake can be costly for your health care clients
As an example, your client may want to compensate physicians based on the volume of their practice in order to reward them for bringing in business. This seems logical in any number of industries. But not in health care law. This could be a violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute and result in substantial penalties. To avoid this, your client may want to compensate physicians based on their expertise.
This is just one example of how a seemingly simple decision by your client can put their business at risk. The regulations and laws vary greatly at the state and federal level, and every type of provider is regulated differently under these laws. So even the example above is not so cut and dry. You need to have a broad knowledge of current laws in this area in order to mitigate your clients’ risks.
For a hospital board, decisions can be a high stakes game. Learn about their responsibilities and duties in times of crisis in an informative health care law webinar.
Failing to comply with these laws can result in a number of penalties, including massive fines, jail time, full-time government oversight, government investigations, impact to licensure, and more. In fact, a mistake now could lead to a potential exclusion from participating in federal health care programs, which would be the kiss of death for your client’s business.
It’s a rabbit hole of risk — especially in the area of fraud and abuse — and you need to help your clients avoid it.
Luckily, Practical Law has the resources you need to stay on top of the ever-changing health care laws. Practical Law provides you with the legal know-how, insights, and documentation needed to handle complex areas of law and save time on research.
What to expect in Practical Law for health law
Practical Law’s Health Care Practice Area gives you deep expertise and knowledge in easy-to-understand resources. This includes specific resources in health care law issues such as:
- Fraud, abuse, and compliance
- Clinical trials and research
- Health care entity formation and governance
- Patient privacy and security
- Payment and reimbursement
- General health care
- State Q&As on fraud and abuse laws
In each of these areas, you can expect continually updated documentation, analysis, and insights into health law. With Standard Documents, Q&As, Practice Notes, and other resources, you can feel confident in being able to tackle even the most complex health law issues for your clients.
How Practical Law can help you
Practical Law helps law firms and corporate law departments meet increasingly complicated client needs due to changing legislation, technology, and the unique challenges to the health care industry. And it can help you:
- Stay competitive — When new issues arise at the state or federal level, you will be prepared with updated resources from Practical Law. This means that you can take on more complex matters and compete with bigger firms with health law knowledge at hand.
- Be a better attorney — No matter the size of your firm, Practical Law gives you the expert knowledge of 280 additional attorneys at Practical Law who take the time to regularly research, update, and manage our resources.
- Save time and reduce unbillable hours — With all of Practical Law’s resources at your fingertips, you won’t need to spend unbillable hours sifting through recent updates to the law. It will be at your fingertips, so you can focus on more important tasks.
Health care law can be high stakes, time-consuming, and complicated. Practical Law can help make navigating this area easier.
